Murder on the Dance Floor
by Quicksilver Ink
Summary: A signed peace treaty means the Zexen Knights can finally return to their homes and families, but Chris Lightfellow has difficulty adjusting to civilian life. Then Lilly Pendragon arrives in town, determined to break her friend out of her shell, and Chris soon finds herself up to her ears in both politics and petticoats.
1. An Uncomfortable Visit

The city of Vinay del Zexay had turned its face towards winter cheerfully. The harvest was in and the autumn sea-storms were sure to abate soon, opening the winter shipping routes. This in turn brought the first stirrings of the social season, carriages rattling gaily throughout the city as the wealthiest merchants and the nobles paid formal social calls, and unmarried young women and men of these endowed families practiced fancy manners at morning teas and afternoon musicales, preparing for the parties and balls at midwinter. Their counterparts in the lower classes still had work during the days, but in the later hours, they could be found in the market streets along the docks, strolling in pairs or laughing in small groups, buying trinkets and roasted chestnuts, and generally filling the last hours of daylight with happy bustle and cheer. Trade-caravan leaders and soldiers alike returned to their families, the former as overland travel became difficult, the latter because the lasting peace had granted them the traditional winter's leave for the first time in years.

Chris Lightfellow was one of those returning soldiers. She had only been in the city for a week, but despite the pile of calling cards arriving on a daily basis, she hadn't made any visits of her own besides two. The first had been an incredibly awkward tea with her friend Borus Redrum and his matchmaking grandmother. The second was a dinner party that ended with her storming out in a temper when a merchant bachelor, offended when she rebuffed his romantic advances, suggested both that she preferred women and was sleeping with every man in her high command.

The calling cards had rather dropped off after that, but she couldn't really bring herself to care. She wasn't the chief commander of Zexen's army for the celebrity of it, and the social obligations that came with the post were (she thought) a worse burden than the paperwork.

Come to think of it, the paperwork hadn't seemed so much of a chore lately…

"You'll be staying for dinner, then, Milady?" The question from her lady's maid, a dimpled woman in her late forties, brought Chris back to the present.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, Molly. Yes, the invitation was through dinner." Chris buttoned up her wool coat. "I may be quite late. You needn't wait up for me. Just have Cook leave the tea things out in case I want them when I return."

Molly curtsied. "As milady will have it. Although they may ask you to spend the night," her tone moved from polite to slightly stern, "It has been quite some time since you last visited the Keefersons."

"It's long overdue," Chris agreed. It had been nearly a year since she'd visited the family that had fostered her after her mother died. "Don't think I've forgotten what I owe them. Although I hope I'd have taken Louis as my squire regardless." She paused as she belted on her sword. "Would you like me to give your regards to Lady Keeferson?"

The older woman, who normally embraced the unspoken rules about the separate spheres of nobles and servants far more than her mistress did, brightened. They were both fond of Lady Keeferson, who'd taken both the orphaned girl and the suddenly-mistressless-maid under her wing, when Chris was nine years old. "Please do."

Chris left her home whistling cheerfully. It would be good to have a proper talk with Lady Keeferson. Oh, she'd written letters, but the correspondence, stretched out by distance and time, felt formal and distant. Chris missed the reassuring warmth of the late-night conversations of her adolescence, the few times she'd been able to visit despite her training. And she'd had thoughts, lately, that she had a hard time putting to word, let alone to paper.

The streets were dotted with passerby as Chris walked from her house, at least at first. But she saw no one after turning off the main roads, into the alleys and side-streets of the residential district. It was strange to be reminded that Vinay del Zexay could even be quieter than Brass Castle - of course, with the steady traffic of merchants and travelers crossing the long canyon that separated Zexen proper from the Grasslands, the fortress had been bustling lately.

Not that Brass Castle didn't have its own quiet places, and Chris found her thoughts once again returning to the evenings spent in the salon with the other Mighty Knights - the high command of Zexen's military. It had been particularly quiet her last evening there. Roland and Percival were months gone, the elf to travel, the man to his hometown of Iksay. Leo and his new wife had withdrawn to their country estate the week prior, and Borus (despite his obvious desire to escort Lady Chris back to the capital) had been dragooned into an earlier departure by order of his terrifying grandmother. So it had just been herself, Louis, and Salome arrayed quietly across the two sofas near the fire.

She'd shared one sofa with a pile of papers, final reports to read and sign off on before she took her winter's leave. She was somewhat cross about it - she'd hoped to be able to relax that night, perhaps read a book like Louis was doing, but too many officers in her command had left their own paperwork until the last minute. As her vice-captain, Salome had his own work to do, although he'd been forced to stack his papers on the floor: Louis took up the second place on his sofa. Some combination of the fire, fatigue, and the dryness of the tome he was supposed to be studying had made the lad's eyes droop and then close entirely, and the crackle of the fire and scratch of pen on paper were joined by the occasional faint whistle of breath.

At some point she looked up to ask Salome a question and saw the man's eyes were already on her, his expression contemplative. She nodded at the slumbering Louis, drawing a smile from her strategist, and then returned to her work with a suddenly lighter heart and a smile curving up the corners of her own lips.

The lightness had felt new and familiar at the same time, and as she readied for bed she followed the thread of memory to the glimpse of an evening from her childhood, seated between her parents as her mother sewed and her father read. But whether it - and the comfortable feeling - were her own or something from the Rune, she could not decide.

This was not the first time she had confusion over memories. She'd considered telling her closest friends among the knights, but decided against it. She was their captain as well as their friend, and "sometimes I can't tell whether a memory is my own or my father's" was not something that would exactly maintain their confidence in her, even if they all knew the Rune held the remnants of her father's spirit. Salome she might have told anyway, had the matter not touched on him.

But she thought she might tell Lady Keeferson. The woman who'd held her when she cried for her dead mother, who'd coaxed her out of her sorrow into laughter, who'd answered her questions when her monthly bleeding had begun. Lady Keeferson had seven sons and no daughters, and Chris had no mother.

A freezing gust from the harbor buffeted her back, drawing Chris out of contemplation, and she paused to button her wool coat more securely. The fastest route to the Keeferson home followed the roads nearest the bay, and the alleys seemed to work as tunnels for the sea winds rather than shelters. She walked quickly from habit, and felt her spirits lift at the familiar loom of the brownstone manor. There had been a time when she was younger that the Keeferson house was home. She still remembered stepping through the door the first time, pale and itchy in black mourning, and being immediately overwhelmed by the sudden increase of volume and energy. Lord and Lady Keeferson had seven sons, and they'd all rushed to the door to greet the nine-year-old girl coming to live with them with awkward bows, small gifts of whittled wood or ribbon, and in Oskar's case, a live frog.

The butler was the same (if much grayer around the temples) when she entered, as was the lively atmosphere, although there was no welcoming committee this time. The house was still a raucous bedlam, chatter and laughter echoing from the back stairs to the front hall. Chris stepped forward to let the door close behind her and was nearly bowled over by two waist-high blurs chasing a dog.

"Sorry, Lady!" A brown-haired girl of about eight called as she dashed after the others. "I need to catch my brothers before they-" She was out of sight before Chris heard the rest.

Chris exchanged looks with the butler, and shrugged helplessly. "I'm sure I was just as bad. Were those Andre's or Piers's children?" They were the eldest of the seven Keeferson sons. Her squire Louis was the youngest.

"Lucen's, actually, milady," he told her as he took her coat and sword-belt. "Although he and his lady are out today on business."

"...that girl was Sophia?" The last time she'd seen her, the girl had been an only child and barely more than a toddler. She shook her head in amazement. "Time flies."

The butler bowed. "Milady has been gone for a long time."

"So I have," she agreed. It had been what, six years since she'd been knighted and moved back to her own family home? And then there had been the wars, and her promotion to Captain General, all of which had kept her in Brass Castle rather than the city for most of the year…_reasons or excuses_, she wondered, then dismissed the disquieting thought. "Where can I find Lady Keeferson?"

Four of of Louis's five oldest brothers were married, so when Chris joined Lady Keeferson to help with hanging garlands, the older woman was already gaily chatting with her daughters-in-law as they studded oranges with cloves and sewed strings of cranberries to evergreen boughs. Chris felt suddenly shy, faced by the laughing group of women. Shaking off the unfamiliar sensation, she joined them.

Lady Keeferson greeted her with a cry and an embrace. "Oh, Chris, just _look_ at you." And so of course the other three women did, openly curious about this newcomer. Then one by one they seemed to realize that the silver-haired woman in trousers was in fact the Lady Captain Chris Lightfellow, commander of Zexen's military, and their faces took on the familiar pink, nervous look of citizens faced with the famous hero.

Chris felt sorry that they hadn't been warned of her coming, but her sympathy didn't have time to last. Soon it was her turn to be overwhelmed as the introductions were handed round, Lady Keeferson rattling off the three women's names and titles and husbands and birthdays and children so quickly that ten minutes later Chris was shamed to realize she remembered only one name (Annika, who wore the red dress) and the husband of another (the oldest woman was the wife of Piers, Louis's eldest brother but one). The third was apparently two years younger than herself, but Chris had missed her name entirely, and only could remember that the woman had one child already and was pretty obviously expecting another one.

That early, uncharacteristic bout of shyness proved a harbinger for the rest of the afternoon, and Chris found herself progressively more ill-at-ease as time wore on. Her fingers were made clumsy with the needle by the gloves she dared not remove, not with the dark brand of the True Water Rune across her right hand, and it seemed her tongue followed suit. She took more than her share of turns up the ladders to hang the wreaths and garlands, escaping the need to be an active participant in the conversation.

It wasn't that the others were unfriendly. The women were quite welcoming, once Lady Keeferson's free manner with Chris and her own willingness to lend a hand removed the stars from their eyes. They spoke easily about their own lives - mainly, their households and children.

Therein lay the problem. Chris could participate in conversation on the first topic marginally, as the master of her own home - although she was there so rarely that the day-to-day decisions were all handled by her steward, and of course that was the focus of the women. Lady Keeferson tried to include Chris in the conversations about children, addressing remarks to her prefaced with "when you have children of your own," but as far as Chris was concerned that only served to highlight the divide between herself and the other women.

"I'd need a husband first," she said dryly, to cover her awkwardness when Annika started following Lady Keeferson's lead. "Which may be some time coming."

"But don't you have a sweetheart?" the youngest wanted to know. "They say all the men are in love with you! You have your choice of all of those handsome knights."

"It's not quite like that," Chris said, wishing her pale skin didn't show embarrassment so easily. "It's mostly just joking."

"Only mostly? So there _is_ someone courting you. I hope he brings you nice gifts." The woman put up her hands and smiled disarmingly. "I tease, I tease."

Chris opened her mouth to repeat one of Percival's favorite jokes, that her strategist courted her with gifts of paperwork, but the humor dimmed almost as soon as she'd thought of it. It was one thing to make such jokes amongst the other knights, another with strangers who might take it seriously. One of them might think to mention it to someone else, and gossip spread like grassfire in dry weather. Salome would not thank her for thoughtlessly causing such a rumor - not when they'd worked so hard to avoid exactly that sort of gossip when he'd supported her as Captain after Galahad's death. And he'd never seemed to find Percival's joke very funny to begin with.

So she put a smile on her face and shook her head. "The other knights are all my friends, not sweethearts."

The other women, Lady Keeferson included, looked a little disappointed. _Hoping for gossip, then?_ she wondered, glad she'd withheld her remark.

The youngest woman sighed. "It must be so lonely that way, without any chance for domestic happiness. I can't imagine life without Oskar."

Chris blinked. _Domestic happiness?_ "Hardly lonely. The salon - that's where we in the Six all meet - can get quite lively in the evening. Mostly we talk, although sometimes we play cards." It was a bit of an exaggeration, but she didn't think "working our way through paperwork in friendly company" would sound all that attractive to the other women.

"That's not quite the same-" the other woman began, at the same time as the Lady Keeferson said, looking a little sad, "I think there's rather more-"

Each waited for the other, politely, and Annika broke in. "I suppose it must be hard, as the only woman."

"Oh, I'm not the only one, or even the first." This was a familiar concern, one Chris could address easily. "There are some other women, although many began as enlistees years ago." That was an oversimplification, but now was not a good time to get into the less-than-shining history of women and commoners in the knighthood. "One of our best training masters is one of them. Lady Aurella Dancon? You may have heard of her - she and Leo Gallen married last month."

They had indeed. News of one of the Six Mighty Knights marrying - at his _home estate_ no less, rather than with great fanfare and fete in the capital - had been quite the talk of the town, and Annika and Oskar's wife peppered her with questions on everything from who was there and what kind of gown the bride had worn, to why Leo Gallen had married an older woman. Chris obliged as best she could (although she couldn't give them the detail they wanted about the gown), and tried to turn aside speculation that Leo's bride had unsavory motives.

"I wasn't there for the stag night, although Louis was, so you might ask him," she said in reply to a question about Mighty Knight traditions of hazing grooms-to-be. "Which reminds me, how is Louis getting along with his nieces and nephews? I haven't seen him yet since coming here."

"Oh, they badger him all the time, asking for stories of the Mighty Knights. I don't think he's had a moment to himself since he's come home," Lady Keeferson replied.

And so the conversation turned back to the other women's children, and no one suggested to Chris again that she would someday have her own.

After dinner, Chris joined the men for talk of politics over their after-dinner brandy, although she asked for a cup of hot tea rather than adding spirits on top of the wine from the meal. It had been a while since she'd seen them all, but the eldest two, Andre and Piers, didn't look that much different, having already been grown when she'd met them. They both looked strongly of their square-jawed, light-eyed father, although Piers had his mother's lighter, brown hair. With Lucen absent (she did not miss the sour-faced man, who as a boy had sulked for weeks when Andre gave the interloping girl his old belt knife), the next oldest was Oskar.

She'd been the closest to him, being the same age, despite the incident with the frog; he'd taught her to use the knife Andre had given her to carve bits of driftwood, although she'd never matched his proficiency. She was tickled to see he'd grown a mustache, and told him so.

He rubbed it. "Marian likes it," he said, a bit shyly.

"Marian has you by the b-" Piers glanced at Chris, and hastily amended, " wrapped around her little finger."

"I'll have you know that I started growing this six months ago." Oskar folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"And that's relevant how?"

Oskar grinned smugly. "Have you _seen_ Marian lately?"

Chris rolled her eyes and the fifth and sixth sons - Neal and Philippe - broke into snickers. "He's got you there, Piers," Philippe said, clapping his older brother on the back.

Lord Keeferson entered the room then, followed by Louis, and the conversation broke off in deference to the family patriarch. Chris had always found him rather imposing, and it was always a bit of a surprise to remember the man was scarcely taller than her and decidedly shorter than half of his sons. She was immensely conscious of what she owed the man, although Louis's presence made her a bit easier on that count. That Lord Keeferson felt the seventeen-year-old counted as an adult enough to join the men was a reflection not just on Louis, but herself as his knight-master.

"So what do you think of this new group, the Free Merchants?" Lord Keeferson asked the room at large. "The ones agitating for free trade."

"Oh, them?" Andre made a disdainful sound. "All puff and gas. They talk a lot about how the Council's tariffs are unfair, an affront to the dignity of man and spirit of Zexen, etcetera etcetera, which might win them some support from the working classes in town, but they don't have any solid proposals for alternative revenues."

Neal shook his head. "The Heinze family supports them. Or at least Lord Heinze; I've heard him pointing to Budehuc as an example. And he's right, they're doing quite well with free trade."

Chris frowned. "Budehuc doesn't tax its trade, true, but they get income by leasing land and buildings to the merchants and others. That wouldn't work here." Most of the property in Vinay del Zexay was privately owned, not held by the Federation.

"So like I said, no solid proposals," Andre said. "In a year's time no one will remember them at all."

"I'm sure the farmers don't like them either," Piers observed. "Without the tariff on Dunan wheat to keep prices high..."

The talk drifted to agriculture, which was apparently a major source of interest for half of them. Chris volunteered the news she'd gleaned from Percival's letters - Iksay's harvest had been a good one for corn and tomatoes, less so for root vegetables, and the discussion continued comfortably from there.

Dusk was coming earlier as the year waned, and it was full dark when Chris stood in the entryway once again, this time buttoning her coat.

"Are you sure you'll be safe?" Lady Keeferson had elected to see her off, although Chris had already made her goodbyes to the rest of the household. "It's so late. You're more than welcome to stay the night."

Chris shook her head, amused, as she buckled on her sword. "I'm armed. And I stick to the main roads when I can. It's not as if I were going down to the docks."

"Oh, I know, it's just my prerogative to worry, that's all." Lady Keeferson shook her head and smiled. "I know you want to go home."

"Home, eh," Chris said pensively. She was suddenly struck by the thought of Brass Castle's echoing hallways, of evenings passed in the fire-warmed salon. Strange - and a little sad - that she should think of that when it was her house in town that she was returning to, and its empty rooms.

Something of her melancholy must have shown on her face, because suddenly the older woman embraced her. "You know that you're always welcome here."

"I know. Thank you." Chris returned the embrace, smiling the woman's familiar, homey smell. But when she opened her eyes, the proximity showed her streaks of grey in the older woman's neatly-knotted hair. Another reminder of how long it had been since the woman had taught her to make the garlands of evergreen and cranberry. Chris had been a child then; she was a woman grown now, and Lady Keeferson had other women to claim as daughters, through proper ties of family.

Chris drew back. "I really ought to be going. Good night, Lady Keeferson."

True to her word, she stuck to the most populous streets that she could on her way back, and she even saw a few fellow travellers despite the late hour. Warm lights shone from the houses she passed, dappling the paving stones. The wind that tugged at her coat sent fallen leaves skidding along the street like ripples in a stream.

More people appeared as the streets broadened nearer the center of the city, where a row of taverns drew a slightly higher class of clientele than the ones near the docks. Chris smiled at the familiar bustle of the crowd, which reminded her of the mess hall and training yards at Brass Castle - male voices raised in talk, argument, laughter. She drifted closer as she walked past, watching the smiling or sullen faces, the straight or staggered steps.. and then stopped, unsettled, as she realized why it reminded her so much of the fortress.

_Have I really become so unaccustomed to other women? _She quickened her step, away from the taverns and streets full of men, back into the quiet streets lined by nobles' residences. The light in her house was on, at least; her butler Andrew knew she had never cared to return to a dark home. Bad enough it was such an empty one…

She was two paces from the front door when it was flung open, the light inside framing a black shadow in the doorway, who pointed a finger and shouted. "Chris Lightfellow! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Chris stopped dead. "_Lilly?_ What are you doing here?_"_

"I ought to ask the same of you! What kind of welcome is this?" the silhouette of Lilly Pendragon planted its hands on its hips and stamped its foot. It was a mannerism familiar to anyone who knew the only daughter of Tinto's President, Gustav Pendragon. "I travel all this way to visit my _very best friend_ on this side of the continent, and what sort of greeting do I receive?An empty house, a dusty room, and cold dinner!"

"I'd have made sure to have a room and dinner ready if I'd known to expect you," Chris said, shaking her head and pushing her way past the bristling woman. "You could've at least sent a letter."

Lilly let her through, and closed the door, which she leaned against, arms folded. "I _did_. I told you that I'd be coming for the Federation Day Ball. Honestly! How you can lead an army if you can't remember such a simple thing?"

"You said that _two years ago_. During the war." Chris waved off her butler - the poor man had enough to deal with Lilly's invasion of the house - and hung up her coat herself. She bent to unlace her boots. "I assumed you meant last year's ball."

Lilly's illogical and indignant response lasted long enough for Chris to remove both of her boots and unbelt her sword.

"So what are your plans while you are here?" Chris asked her friend when the other woman paused for breath. "The ball isn't for another month."

Lilly picked a stray auburn hair from her shoulder. "Shopping, obviously - the fashions have all changed since last time and I can't go to _the_ Federation Day Ball looking like a country bumpkin! And then of course I need to keep my dear friend from spending the winter holed up in her house and turning into a bookworm as fusty and dry as whats-his-face - that bowl-haired strategist you employ."

"Salome isn't fusty," Chris objected. "And his hair isn't that bad."

Lilly just looked at her, her expression disbelieving.

Chris sighed and smiled. "All right, I grant you the hair." She shook her head. "So you're here to shop, attend the ball, and bully me into socializing, is that right?"

"Oh, well," Lilly looked down and began fidgeting with her gloves. "There's some trade negotiations Father wants me to do for him. Nothing big, really, but I will need to nip down to visit a few merchants downtown some afternoon."

"Congratulations," Chris said, genuinely. Tinto was a mining country, and trade negotiations a serious responsibility.

"Oh, tosh, it's nothing. Just a little errand. Something to occupy me while you're at the dressmakers. Because you," Lilly levelled a gloved finger at Chris, who stepped back involuntarily, "_are_ coming to the ball with me, and you are going to be wearing a _gown._"

"Me? In a gown?" Chris was torn between amusement and dismay. "No, thank you. I'd look silly."

"You'd look _stunning_ and you know it," Lilly returned fiercely. "Sword and _Shield_, Chris, you need to stop with the false modesty, it's bad manners and makes you look like you're fishing for compliments. Besides, if you go in uniform, all of the other young women are going to giggle and whisper whenever you walk by. And I _know_ you hate that." She grinned as she caught Chris's involuntary cringe. "And then Borus and Percival will die of heartbreak because they can't dance with you."

"How is it that you can remember their names but not Salome's?" Chris asked shaking her head. "Never mind, I don't think I want to hear the answer." She sighed; her mind's eye showed her a crowd of women chatting comfortably in a circle, while she remained on the periphery. "All right, all right, I'll go."

Lilly clapped her hands together. "_And_ wear a gown?"

"_And_ wear a gown," Chris replied, trying to sound casual and shrugging. "Why not."

Lilly's crow of triumph was decidedly unladylike.


	2. Fittings

The weeks before the ball passed quickly in Lilly's company. The woman had made good her threat to make Chris socialize, dragging her off to half a dozen dinner parties and as many morning teas - none with Chris's own knights, to her dismay. Since her return to Vinay del Zexay, her only contact with the men she was used to seeing on a daily basis had been the single tea with Borus and her visit to the Keefersons. Percival would not be in town until closer to the ball, and Leo was newly married and no doubt enjoying some peace and quiet with his bride; she hadn't expected an invitation from either of them. But the lack of anything beyond official communications from Salome was disappointing. Her friend must be busy, or perhaps he was concerned about about how it would look for the young, unmarried female Captain of the knights to pay social calls on the older man who had supported her initial promotion above more senior candidates? She hadn't heard any unsavory rumors about her rise to captaincy since the end of the war, but Salome had always been more aware of political currents than she was. Still, if Lilly hadn't set such a relentless schedule, Chris would've been tempted to use official business to invite her second-in-command for tea and circumvent the gossip that an unchaperoned visit might otherwise engender.

Of the events they did attend, some were with nobles' families, but most were with the families merchants Lilly was negotiating with, and Chris bore them as peacefully as she could for her friend's sake. It helped that Lilly not only enjoyed being the center of attention at social events, but seemed to see it as her due; Chris could ride along in her wake.

Lilly, however, was not satisfied by Chris's social performance. "We're going to visit some friends of yours," she announced, and so Chris found herself at a second tea with Borus and his grandmother. She entered the parlor, trailing after Lilly and Borus, bracing for another deeply uncomfortable encounter.

Two of the seats at the table were already occupied, but not by Dowager Lady Redrum. Chris's relief had no time to rise, however, for they would be sharing tea with young woman in a fine rose dress in the latest fashion, her hair a mass of blonde curls. So instead of Borus's grandmother's matchmaking, they faced a morning of chatter about dresses, balls, and Handsome Young Men - that was scarcely an improvement.

Then she saw the other seat was occupied by a much more familiar face: Salome Harras. Chris blinked in surprise at the sight of him in such company, but felt her trepidation recede. It was good to see her friend again.

The blond man rose as they entered and bowed, his expression composed. "Lady Chris, Lady Lilly, may I present my sister, Miss Rachel Harras?"

Lilly and Rachel exchanged curtseys, their full skirts dipping elegantly. Chris, wearing trousers and a tailored jacket, bowed over the young woman's hand in the standard knight's greeting.

When she righted from her bow, her strategist's sister was regarding her with undisguised curiosity. Embarrassed by the direct attention, Chris turned to Salome and asked how he'd been.

His smiled, but politely. "Quite well. City life always requires a certain amount of adjustment after so long at Brass Castle, but I welcome the change of pace. And yourself, Lady Chris?"

"I'm well, although I seem to be having rather more difficulty with the adjustment," she said frankly. "I almost miss our evenings doing paperwork."

The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, and Chris felt some satisfaction at getting a genuine smile out of him. He opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a regal, arctic voice from the doorway

"It is so good of you all to come visit," Borus's grandmother intoned, and Chris suppressed a sigh as she turned to make her formal greeting.

The terrifying Dowager Lady Redrum was overjoyed to have three unwed ladies to whom she could promote her grandson, and dominated the initial conversation. Lilly filled in what spaces the older woman left, and so Chris spent the first half-hour exchanging amused glances with Salome and directing sympathetic ones at Borus.

Finally, some household matter drew Borus's grandmother from the room.

"Goddess, I thought she'd never leave," Borus muttered under his breath. He turned to Chris. "Lady Chris. Will you - will you and Lady Lilly be attending the Federation Day Ball?"

"Oh definitely!" Lilly answered, before Chris could so much as open her mouth. "How could we miss _the_ event of the season? And don't you fear, I'll make certain Chris attends if I have to drag her there myself with a team of oxen."

"That won't be necessary," Chris said quickly. "I already said I'd go." And then, because she knew Lilly would spout out the whole business about gowns if she didn't redirect the conversation swiftly, she turned to Salome's sister and addressed her. "Will you and your brother be attending the Federation Day Ball, Rachel?"

Rachel smiled. "Oh, both of us, definitely. I love dancing! Mad for it, honestly."

"Is she?" Lilly asked Salome with a raised eyebrow.

"She is," Salome confirmed with a smile and an incline of his head. "And her skill is superlative."

Borus laughed. "How do we know you're not praising her because you're her brother? For all we know this is just a ploy to get others to dance with her at the ball and have our feet trod."

"I wanted to be a dancing instructor when I was sixteen," Rachel explained. "I made Salome teach me the men's parts as well, so I would be able to teach them. I made him help me practice them, too."

Every head in the room turned to Salome, who was somewhat taken aback by the scrutiny. Chris lifted her teacup to hide her smile; the mental image of her reserved strategist being harassed into dancing by a sixteen-year-old was an amusing one.

"Did she?" Lilly asked, finally. "Make you dance with her just so she could practice the men's parts, I mean."

"She made me help her practice _both_ parts," Salome said ruefully. "Believe me when I say she dances well. I made sure of it, one bruised foot at a time."

Three weeks after Lilly's unexpected arrival found Chris looking down at the yards of light blue muslin hanging about her as she turned experimentally. The fabric swayed with her, petticoats whispering along her shins in a way that felt very different from the trim of a long coat rasping along trousers. She took a quick look in the mirror. She was a little taken aback by the feminine figure it presented. "I look like a noblewoman," she observed, blinking at herself. Violet eyes set in the face of a slightly astonished woman blinked back.

"Chris, you _are_ a noblewoman," Lilly replied, tossing her auburn hair impatiently. "Of course you look like one. I meant, what do you think about the _dress_."

"It seems like it fits?" Chris replied after a moment after tugging at sleeves and waistline, then swinging her arms back and forth. "It's not as constricting as I worried it would be. I think my range of motion should be all right. Although..." she grimaced, casting her eyes over her reflection's shoulders, "The neckline is a little..."

"Plain? Exactly what I have been saying!" Lilly fixed an eye on the dressmaker. "The square cut is certainly flattering, but what's the _point_ if you're not putting some nice trim on it?"

The dressmaker, a middle-aged women named Mrs. Ravel, returned Lilly's stubborn gaze squarely. "I agree entirely. One moment, Lady Pendragon, milady Lightfellow." She turned and walked briskly away.

"I was going to say _low_," Chris said uncomfortably, gesturing. "It doesn't really need more decoration."

"Low?" Lilly took a closer look, then shook her head. "Not a bit. Your chemise doesn't show in the slightest."

"It still _feels_ low," Chris muttered, tugging in vain at the edge of the fabric. Lilly slapped her hands lightly. "It does! I feel like Jeane."

"Honestly, Chris!" Lilly rolled her eyes at the suggestion that her friend's _perfectly modest_ dress was anything like what like the infamous Runemaster wore. "Of course it feels low next to those fussy high collars you always wear."

"Lady Pendragon is perfectly correct," Mrs. Ravel said, returning abruptly. "It shows nothing an unmarried young woman shouldn't be showing." She held up several lengths of lace and ribbon, offering them for Lilly's inspection, ignoring Chris's repeated insistence that the dress was _fine_. After conferring, the two women held up a length of lace to the front of Chris's dress.

"Perfect," Lilly pronounced, and Mrs. Ravel began measuring and muttering and pinning.

Chris asked, torn between irritation and amusement, "I don't suppose I get a say in this?"

Lilly responded with another eye-roll.

"Now if milady would turn," the dressmaker said, more a command than a request. Chris Lightfellow was a knight and the commander of Zexen's armies, but in the dressmaker's shop, it was Mrs. Ravel who was the ranking officer, and Chris who must obey.

Sighing, Chris turned, feeling a bit like a doll in a music box. The wooden platform beneath her creaked, which didn't do much to dispel the idea.

Lilly and Mrs. Ravel then scrutinized the hem (which needed re-pinning), the neckline (which Chris still didn't like, but the extra lace helped make it look a little higher), and the skirt (fuller than usual, which Chris had insisted upon for freer movement).

Certain they'd gone over every inch of the dress by now, Chris started to step down.

"Stay there, Chris, we're not done." Lilly informed her, blocking her exit. "At least take another look in the mirror at the adjusted hem."

Chris did as she was instructed, then turned and looked back over her shoulders. "Seems fine to me." She tried to step down again, and was blocked once more.

Lilly's eyes flashed. "Fine? Chris, you are a _dear_ friend, but your idea of 'fine' when it comes to fashion is.. is, frankly, _not good enough. _Especially not for your dress for the Federation Day Ball. It needs to be _perfect_." Lilly picked at one of the short, puffed sleeves, frowning. "Mrs. Ravel?" she addressed the dressmaker. "I don't think the cap sleeve will do at all, not with her arms. She needs something down to here, I think." Lilly indicated a spot just above Chris's elbow, below the curve of her bicep.

"I've been to the ball before," Chris muttered. "It's not that big a deal. And there's nothing wrong with my arms."

Lilly shook her head impatiently. "You were in uniform, and you hardly danced with anyone. It's not the same. And I didn't say anything was wrong with your arms, I said the trouble was the _sleeves_." She plucked at the puff of fabric again. "I can't wear this style either. It's meant for spindly-armed daughters of rich merchants, not swordswomen like us."

"I see your point, Miss Pendragon," the dressmaker remarked. "I have some ideas, but it will depend on the gloves milady will be wearing."

As Lilly and Mrs. Ravel debated the relative merits of below- and above-the-elbow gloves and the styles of sleeve they suited, Chris glanced across the room, looking for a clock, and when she found none, sternly reminded herself that she _had _agreed to this, that her reasons for _why_ were no different than they'd been two hours ago. It was just hard to remember them when Lilly had the bit between her teeth.

But then again, Lilly always had the bit between her teeth. Chris smiled at the thought, then shook her head - earning a rebuke from Mrs. Ravel.

With the horror of dress-fittings were over, Chris found she was actually beginning to look forward to the ball. There had been a minor crisis locating long gloves that fit her (compounded by Chris's refusal to bare her right hand in public), but dancing slippers were surprisingly easy to find in all sizes – the differences between male and female styles being more one of color than design. The only other hiccup was powder for her face, and rouge. Lilly spent a good ten minutes muttering over a dozen pots of powder that all looked identical to Chris. She took even longer picking out rouge, although at least there Chris could see a difference in the shades.

"If you hate it all so much, I'm surprised you let me talk you into this," Lilly remarked the evening before the ball, after Chris had broken her third practice fan and was grumbling about the foolishness of the whole endeavor. They were in the parlor, planning strategy for the next day. A tea service sat to one side, forgotten, and a low fire heated the room. "You don't usually let people push you around."

Chris opened her mouth to respond, closed it, and smiled apologetically. "I don't hate it all. I'm just unsettled because I wasn't expecting it all to be so..."

"Fussy?" Lilly supplied, smiling. "Frivolous. Unnecessary. Insipid." She sipped her tea. "Ugh, it's cold."

Chris reddened. They were all terms she'd used to express her displeasure with the dress fittings. "Unfamiliar," she supplied.

That surprised Lilly. "Unfamiliar? You mean the fittings and things? Chris, I know for a_ fact_ that you spent three hours at the tailor's to get that wool coat of yours made to your exacting specifications," she pointed out with exasperation. "Or is it the dress? Because you seem perfectly familiar with skirts in general." She pointed at the cotton broadcloth article Chris was wearing.

"The coat is useful," Chris pointed out, bristling slightly. "I wear it almost every day during winter. It was worth spending the time to get it right. The ball dress is something I'm going to wear _once_, maybe twice, for an evening at a time." She kicked a leg, her skirts and petticoats flung out, then gently floating back, and sighed. "And yes, I sometimes wear skirts at home. Practical ones. Not a _gown_, and not to the ball. I've always been in uniform for those."

"When you couldn't avoid them entirely," Lilly pointed out, grinning wickedly. "I know you say you hate balls. You told me that you'd only been at the one where we met because Sir Galahad ordered you to go. Which brings me to my question: _why_ are you doing all of this now?" She looked pensive, then smiled widely, struck by an idea. "Oh, have you fallen for one of your knights and now you want a proper romance?" She clapped her hands together. "Oh, _Chris! _Is it Borus or Percival?_"_

"No!" Chris threw up her hands in a warding gesture. "Goddess, no! No, no, no, nothing like that!" The absolute last thing she wanted to contend with was Lilly on a matchmaking crusade.

Lilly sank back in her seat, fold her arms and huffing in disappointment. "Huh! So why, then? You owe me that much!"

Chris hesitated, searching for words. How ill at ease she'd been with Lady Keeferson and the other women that day. How as a child her mother had said to her, "when you are a woman grown…" and how Molly now would tell her, "your mother used to.."

Finally, she said, "Wait here," and headed out of the room, leaving an impatient Lilly calling after her. "Chris, if you don't tell me _immediately_ after you get back here I will put eggs in your boots and...and _frogs_ in your bed!"

Chris found the old wooden box easily – it was on the same shelf it had been for years, in her parents' long-empty bedroom. Blowing to clear any dust (not that there was any - Molly kept her rooms tidy), she took it and returned.

Lilly stopped issuing threats once Chris opened the box and handed it over, and immediately went into raptures over its contents, holding up earrings and necklaces and cooing. "Chris! These are _lovely_! Well, a few are a bit ostentatious, matronly, even, but most are - well, I know you wear earrings but frankly I never imagined you'd put together this much of a collection, and in such good _taste_."

"They were my mother's." Chris said simply. "You'll have to give the credit for the good taste to her."

"Oh." Lilly's face softened at once. "Oh, Chris."

She didn't add anything – no sympathetic noises, no "I understand". Instead Lilly's hand went to her throat to touch the locket she was wearing – a keepsake from Lilly's own mother.

Chris relaxed. It was good to remember that Lilly was her friend for more reasons than matching ages and short tempers and a shared interest in swordswork.

For a few minutes they sat in silence. Lilly broke it first. She cleared her throat and straightened. "Well, don't you worry! I will make certain you do your mother proud at this ball or I'm not Lilly Pendragon!"

"That's what I'm afraid of," Chris replied dryly. "Pass me the box. There should be a sapphire choker that I thought might work, but I don't have much of an eye for these things."

The next morning Chris was shaken from vague, pleasant dreams by the bang of a door thrown open and shouting. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and sighed. "Good morning, Lilly."

"Chris Lightfellow! I refuse to let you waste all day lying abed! There is much work to be done!" Lilly's face, illuminated more by the candle she held than the weak light from the windows, shone with righteousness. She was already fully dressed in trousers and a loose, long-sleeved jacket, her sword belted at her waist.

Chris glanced at the window. "It's scarcely dawn. Lilly, the ball isn't until _tonight_." She shook her head, and added a touch more crossly. "And I would have been up within an hour anyway."

"Yes, but then you wouldn't take your exercise until just before lunch, and I know you always work up a sweat, and by the time you'd have bathed and eaten lunch it would be too late. Your hair really needs to be up in papers all morning." She set the candle on the vanity and crossed her arms. "I didn't think you'd be willing to forgo your daily practice entirely. So that's why we're doing it now."

Chris dressed quickly. "And here I thought being roused at dawn for weapon's practice was a thing that ended when I became Captain," she grumbled good-naturedly as she brushed out her hair.

The impatient tattoo of Lilly's boot on the wooden floorboards halted. "Not when you became a knight?"

"Hah!" Chris laughed dryly. "The very first day after I was knighted, Percival and Borus woke me at dawn and dragged me out to the practice courts. They said a knight needed to be prepared for anything."

Lilly grinned. "And this is why I prefer to be an independent swordswoman - no hazing. But boys will be boys, I suppose… Wait, didn't you have some sort of vigil before being knighted? You must have been exhausted."

"Yes, all night in the chapel. You're supposed to get a nap in afterward, before the ceremony, but for some reason I wasn't able to get much rest. So they woke me from my first proper sleep in _two days_." She tied off her braid, then added, "I was hung over, too, which was _also_ Percival's fault."

"Well, you're not hung over now, and we have a ball to get ready for, so if you're done lollygagging we can go down and get some exercise!" Lilly hooked her arm in Chris's and started marching her from the room. Chris followed, shaking her head.

Lilly kept the practice short and, by Chris's standards, fairly light - "we don't want to be too worn out to dance tonight!" - but both women had sweat beading their foreheads when they returned from the yard. Chris had intended to bathe quickly, since for once her muscles didn't want a soak, but her lady's maid had other ideas.

"Not smelling like that, you don't," her lady's maid Molly told her as she rose from the bath. "What possessed you, bathing with lye soap before the ball?"

She accepted the sliver of soft, rose-scented soap from her maid without complaint - it was much nicer than the stinging stuff she usually used - but grimaced as milk, honey, and lily bulbs were added to the water. "I feel like I should be drinking this, not bathing it in," she grumbled. "It's wasted in here."

"It will do milady's skin no good from the _inside_," Molly told her sternly. "And afterward there's a wash for your face." She sighed. "There's little helping your hands, but at least you'll have gloves on."

Chris ducked her hands under the water reflexively. "I always wear gloves. Especially now."

After the bath, Molly poured brandy into a bowl, harangued Chris until she washed her face in it, and then repeated the process with buttermilk.

In retaliation, Chris poured herself a measure of the brandy into a nearby teacup. "I refuse to smell like the stuff if I'm not drinking it," she said firmly, taking a seat for Molly to brush her hair.

The feel of the brush through her wet hair was soothing, but Molly was uncharacteristically quiet throughout. Usually she'd talk about Chris's parents while brushing out her lady's hair, the same story about their fairytale courtship and marriage.

Chris couldn't decide if she was disappointed or relieved by the silence. Molly had been her mother's maid before she was Chris's, and beyond her own hazy memories, the older woman's stories were Chris's only window into her mother's life. But…

She contemplated the cup of brandy for a moment, then took a sip, feeling the warmth slide down her throat. _I suppose today Molly would rather not dwell on how how unlike my mother I am_, Chris thought melancholically. _I don't think I wish to, either. _The impending ball loomed ahead that evening, suddenly daunting; to hear of how fine and proper a Lady her mother was would only serve to remind her of her own uneasiness with the role.

The brushing stopped. "I'll need to grease it so it will take a curl," Molly said, and Chris winced. She'd had her hair up in curls a few times in adolescence, for holidays at the Keefersons, and she'd always hated the thick, oily feel of pomade on her scalp, and the waxy stiffness it gave her hair the next day.

"Milady," Molly's voice was reproving. "You may not care for it, but you have simply too much hair to chance that it will take a curl from rags alone."

Chris closed her eyes and held in a sigh. "All right. We might as well do this properly." She heard Molly get up and cross the creaking floorboards to the vanity, then return.

She was braced for the cold, greasy feeling of the pomade on her scalp, but it was the scent of it that struck her first, strangeness and familiarity striking her almost like a blow.

"What's that?" she demanded, eyes flying open. "This isn't what Lady Keeferson used. But I've smelled this before." An image rose in her mind, a composite of hazy childhood memory and the portrait that hung in the parlor. Her right hand felt chilly, like it was sitting in a bowl of water, and the image sharpened, laugh lines forming around her mother's eyes.

"Lavender, almond essence, and bergamot," Molly said, continuing to comb, although less smoothly. Chris could feel the comb catch on small snarls. "It's what your mother used for her hair. "

"Oh."

"Your mother was impatient before balls, too," Molly continued. "Nervous, as well, until she married. Of course, she had more to be nervous about, what with making a suitable match - and she wasn't as well known or popular as you are, milady."

"That's the least of my concerns right now," Chris replied dryly.

Molly stopped combing. "She didn't care for the scrutiny from the young men. Or their mothers." Chris felt her separate a section of hair and begin winding it up. "Well, some of the young men. She certainly appreciated your father's attentions. I recall when he first arrived, and he couldn't take his eyes off of her..."

The rolling of her hair in rags to make it curl was less than comfortable, but Chris suffered it quietly. The brandy helped, together with the nostalgic scent of the pomade and Molly's recollections.

"That's the last of it, milady," Molly said, abruptly, and Chris was startled to realize they were done. After a moment's hesitation, she turned around and awkwardly embraced her maid. "Thank you."

Molly colored and patted her shoulder awkwardly. "You're quite welcome, milady."

Chris went over her mail in her room rather than the parlor, feeling silly-looking in a dressing gown with her hair oily and tied up with frayed strips of linen. There wasn't much to read, and none of it was urgent. A few reports to read and sign, a short but enthusiastic missive from the girl Cecile Brown up at Budehuc, and a handful of invitations. One was from the Keefersons, asking her to visit again. Guiltily she set that one aside, answering the rest.

Lilly and both of their maids pounced after lunch. Chris made a few token protests for dignity's sake, then let Molly make a happy fuss over everything from the lacing of her stays ("too loose, milady's posture will suffer!") to the fit of the dress ("I suppose the dressmaker _does_ know her craft.").

"Very nice, although I still think it would've looked better with the half-stays," Lilly put in as Molly did up Chris's buttons. "It would've been a little more… oh, what's the word, saucier?" She gestured.

"_No_." "Absolutely _not_!"

Lilly backed away from the negation-in-stereo. "It was just an observation!"

"Well, you can keep your observations to yourself," Chris told her shortly, turning experimentally in front of the mirror. The dress didn't seem as uncomfortable as it had in the shop. The paisley shawl covered up more that she had expected. And while the gloves – long, fitted, white things that she was certain she'd stain by the end of the evening – felt stiff, they didn't hamper her dexterity as badly as, say, a gauntlet.

The only unpleasant surprise (which really shouldn't have been one, now that she thought of it) was realizing that in a gown and dancing slippers, she had nowhere to carry a blade of any kind, not even her boot knife. The thought of going unarmed left her feeling almost more exposed than the dresses' neckline had in the shop.

Lilly was amused. "It's a_ ball,_ not a battlefield_._ You do need weapons, just not the kind you're thinking of." She pointed with her fan. "Your dress is your armor. Your words are your weapons. And the maneuvering of armies is the dancing. Not to mention, you're_ always_ armed when you've got that thing," she pointed to the Rune on Chris's right hand, hidden behind the glove, and shrugged. "But if you like, you could hide a knife down your stays, in the busk pocket. I did it once, in Harmonia. At least then you'd have a _reason_ to be so straitlaced."

Immediately Chris moved to the trunk where she kept her weapons and dug out her boot and belt knives. After checking the length and width of each – the crossguards were all too wide to fit- she knelt down by her bureau and started rummaging around. "I_ know_ I've got an old knife... ahah!" she pulled out the old rondel dagger she'd had as a squire. The blade was a handspan in length, a little on the long side anyway. She'd stopped using it when half the wooden hilt had split off the blade's tang, making it unsuitable for normal use. But now the flattened hilt was exactly what she needed.

Molly objected, of course. Milady would have to undress to remove the busk. The oil on the blade would spot the stays and the dress. It would spoil the figure of the dress. It was what_ barbarians_ would do. Milady's mother would never have done such a thing.

"And how many knives did my father hide on his person when_ he_ dressed up for balls?" Chris asked with a smile, folding a sheet of paper around the blade, then winding that in a handkerchief. "You don't need to answer that."

Replacing her busk with the knife required undressing, which Molly helped her with only after Lilly suggested Chris could strap the knife to her leg instead.

Lilly _did_ strap a knife to her own thigh, under her panniers, and laughed when Chris pointed out she'd have no way to draw it with the full skirts in the way.

"Yes, but it's all for fun anyway, so what's it matter?" Lilly grinned and spun so that her skirts lifted and petticoats flashed.

Hair and makeup took less time than she feared they would - it helped that Molly and Lilly seemed to be in perfect aesthetic accord on both those accounts. Chris was happy to let them sort it all out. She'd learned how to apply makeup for the theater at Budehuc, during the war, but she knew that the heavy paints necessary to be seen on stage were a far cry from the delicate touch needed for a formal event.

She did insist on putting on her earrings and necklace herself. The earrings - a pair of dangling blue crystals - had been a midwinter gift from the Keefersons one year. The sapphire choker Lilly had helped her select was her mother's, and Chris felt a lump form in her throat as she settled the unaccustomed weight around her neck and fumbled with the clasp.

"It's crooked," Lilly pointed out, fastening her own earrings. "Take a look in the mirror."

Chris turned to do so and froze at the sight of the reflected image. A moment later, the expression on the reflected visage dispelled the illusion; it was only her own face and startled eyes looking back at her, framed by fancy clothes and curled hair. She looked ill-at-ease.

"Well? Have you got it on straight?" Lilly was oblivious to Chris's moment of confusion. "We really need to be going soon…"

_I can't do this_, Chris thought, suddenly and passionately wishing for the comfort of familiar clothes and hairstyle. _This isn't me_. "I look like a little girl playing dress-up with her mother's things."

Predictably, Lilly rolled her eyes. "Chris! Look at yourself in the mirror. You are most definitely a_ woman_."

"I did," Chris replied. "That's how I drew that particular conclusion."

"Well, look again," Lilly told her, and took Chris by the shoulder and forcibly turned her. "There. Look."

With a sigh, Chris looked at the two women in the mirror.

The redhead's lavender gown was classically formal - wide satin skirts trimmed with lace and frills. Her hair was piled up in an elegant tower of curls, a few left loose to caress her throat and shoulders. From her relaxed carriage and her cheerful expression, she seemed entirely at home in fancy dress.

Next to her, Chris's own platinum-haired reflection looked almost plain by contrast, in the modestly decorated blue gown. Loose sleeves hung down to her elbows where they met the ends of long white gloves. She looked at her hair again - wound around her head in a coronet with only a few curls let down to frame her face, at just a glance it wasn't really _so_ different from her usual braided crown. And the contrast with Lilly's frosted-cake finery helped; she looked like she might be paying a more ordinary social call, just wearing a dress rather than her usual tailored jackets and blouses.

"Yes, that style works nicely for you. I was worried it would be too plain, but with your Molly's genius with your hair and your mother's necklace you are A Picture of Simplistic Elegance." Lilly pronounced this with capital letters, then beamed. "How do I look?"

"You look nice too."

"Just nice? Chris Lightfellow, I give you a compliment like Picture Of Simplistic Elegance and all you can tell me is that I look _nice_?"

Chris shook her head. "If you want flowery praise for your looks, ask Percival. But you do look very nice." She paused, thinking, then added, "You look very grand. I feel sorry for the poor squires you make dance with you this time."

Lilly laughed, and gathering up her skirts, headed for the door.


	3. Dance Floor

"And here we are! The fifty-seventh Zexen Federation Day ball!" Lilly pronounced grandly as their carriage rattled to a halt in the rather long queue in the square outside the capitol building.

"Do we have to wait for our turn, or can we just get out and walk from here?" Chris asked, peering outside. She was getting restless just sitting around, and the coach was badly sprung. Riding in it was worse than trying to sit a trot on a grumpy horse, as far as Chris was concerned.

Lilly gawped at her. "Chris. What is the _point_ of hiring a coach if we're not going to be seen stepping out of it at the entryway? Not that I can walk far in these." She kicked a fashionable fur-slippered foot.

And so it was a good ten minutes later that were able to exit into the crisp near-winter evening. "Ah, this is better," Chris said, ignoring the coachman's hand and hopping directly down to the pavement past the folding step. She turned back to offer Lilly assistance.

"That was rude of you," Lilly observed as the coachman twitched the reins, the horse tossing his head before drawing the carriage out of the line.

Chris's eyebrows came together in concern. "Why? I tipped him! Or was that wrong?"

"Not _that_, ignoring his hand." Lilly turned and began climbing the steps, lifting her skirts with a hand as she kept her paisley shawl close about her shoulders with the other.

Chris followed her friend automatically and nearly stepped on the hem of her dress. Embarrassed, she copied Lily, and hurried to catch up. "But I didn't need it. Besides, no one's ever offered one since I was a child."

Her auburn-haired friend paused on the top step and looked at her, startled. "What. Never?"

"Not in town when it's just a coach." She paused at the door, which was opened for them by a pair of very attentive footmen in the council's purple livery. They had recognized her immediately, and moved to open the door even before she dug in her reticule and produced the official invitation. "Of course people offer me a hand down from my horse when I'm in full plate."

"Well, before was before," Lilly said with asperity. "_Now_ you're a Lady going to a ball."

"I've always been female. And I've been at the ball before," Chris protested, although she knew where Lilly was going with this.

Lilly covered her face with a gloved hand. "In _uniform_. You might as well have been a man."

"I attended as a _knight_," Captain Chris Lightfellow returned frostily.

"You _know_ what I meant. Come on, we need to change our shoes." Lilly nodded in the direction of a small crowd bustling outside the small salon functioning as a temporary cloakroom.

They stood their turn in line, Lilly watching the new arrivals at the door and cheerfully handing out judgment. "What a lovely shade of pink! A pity she doesn't have the complexion for it. Oh, look at the embroidery on his coat! That's Old Highland style. And _that's_ someone whose family just made their fortune and wants us all to know it. No taste."

Chris let Lilly's chatter wash over her as she scanned the crowd herself. They were being eyed by the other new arrivals, although it was mostly passing glances.

She had expected her departure from uniform would draw some attention, particularly from young men – when it came to the admiration of young men, particularly Borus, she was not as oblivious as she pretended to be - she just wished she were. What she had not anticipated the wide eyes or hushed conversations amongst the women.

"They're sizing you up as a rival," Lilly explained happily as they changed their boots for dancing slippers in the cloakroom. "I suppose it's a little worse than it would usually be, since you'll be seen as having an advantage with some of the most eligible bachelors." At Chris's blank stare she elaborated. "Borus and Percival, mainly. And your status as the celebrated Silver Maiden will draw the interest of others."

"They think I'm here looking for a husband?" Chris flushed. "Oh, no. Please tell me you're joking."

"They don't know that you're not!" Lilly grinned and stood up. "Come on, let's go."

Chris trailed after her. "Can't I just tell them I'm not interested in that sort of thing?" she asked, plaintively.

Lilly shrugged. "You can, but others may not believe you. 'The lady doth protest too much' and all that. Oooh, look! It's Borus and Percival. If you don't want them can I have one? Oh, don't look at me like that, I only meant for the evening."

Chris promptly buried her face in her fan.

The two knights were inside the ballroom itself, so to speak with them, Chris and Lilly would first need to be formally announced. Lilly proceeded grandly to the short line at the doors, Chris following nervously. She'd forgotten this bit of pomp and circumstance, copied by Zexen's fairly young noble families from the traditions of the former Scarlet Moon Empire.

Announcing was alway the duty of squires, dressed in the same purple brocade as the footmen. When they reached the head of the line, Chris was amused to see that Louis had been assigned the first shift. He goggled openly at the sight of his knight-master in a gown, then struggled to assume a more formal expression. "Er, Lady Chris… should I be announcing you as Captain, Lady, or, ah, Miss?" he whispered nervously, as the women paused in the threshold.

Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, Chris glanced at Lilly.

"_Lady_ Chris Lightfellow will do," Lilly said grandly. If she recognized Louis she gave no sign."And I am Lady Lilly Pendragon, daughter of the president of Tinto - and I'm technically first lady, although you needn't add that."

Louis shot a nervous, questioning look at his knight-master.

"Add it," Chris mouthed, and he nodded in thanks.

He took a breath, and Chris braced herself for the scrutiny that would inevitably follow.

"_The Lady Chris Lightfellow. First Lady Lilly Pendragon of Tinto."_

The wash of chatter and conversation diminished as heads turned to face them. Chris fought off a flush, reminding herself that the full attention of assembled troops no longer bothered her, and she'd had more eyes - many just as critical - on her all those times she'd addressed the joint Fire Bringer forces at Budehuc during the last war. It should not be so intimidating, facing this unarmed crowd. But she was painfully conscious once again of the neckline and thin fabric of her dress, and glad for the familiar firm pressure of her full stays.

Borus and Percival had begun making their way across the room as soon as the women had been announced, but Chris and Lilly still had to exchange salutations with two councilmen and their wives, and a handful of unattached gentlemen, before they could meet up with the knights. By the time the two pairs reached each other, Chris was relieved to be subject to even Borus's painfully admiring gaze and Percival's cool appraisal - it was better than the lingering eyes that made her feel like a horse at the market.

"Lady Chris! You look..." Borus swallowed. "The dress is most becoming, milady."

"Thank you," Chris replied a shade awkwardly. "You and Percival look well too." And they did. Percival was wearing an impeccably tailored green brocade frock coat with wide white cuffs and a matching cravat, while Borus cut an unexpectedly dashing figure in deep blue with silver embroidery.

"Yes, our Lady Captain is quite stunning in a gown, isn't she?" Percival said, and opened his hands. "To what occasion do we owe this unexpected and delightful change?"

Chris struggled with embarrassment. "Is it really so strange for me to dress this way?" she asked, although she knew the answer.

"Yes." Percival said seriously. "You always show up in mess uniform for these events. When you can't get out of them."

"_Yes,"_ Lilly said, feelingly. "We've been over this."

"_I_ don't think it's strange!" Borus said firmly. The others turned to gape at him. He reddened. "I mean, it's true that Lady Chris's mode of formal dress is usually is of…" he trailed off, apparently realizing there was no way to discuss Chris's usual civilian clothes - male styles tailored for a feminine form - without contradicting himself or commenting directly on her figure.

"It's all right, Borus," Chris said, smiling wryly. "Go ahead and say it. You weren't expecting me to show up looking like this either. Neither was I."

"It's not a_ bad_ thing," Percival reassured her. "Why, I would not be surprised if every gentleman in attendance seeks you out for a dance tonight. The queue will be down the street!" His eyes darted sideways. "Borus will act as bouncer, turning away the unworthy. Or maybe just the competition."

Borus, predictably, bristled. Chris was trying to find something defusing to say when Lilly stepped forward into the space immediately before Percival.

"Are you suggesting_ my_ dress is not as becoming as Chris's?" Lilly demanded, her skirts quivering in challenge. "I demand an apology for the insult!" Her face was inches from his.

"No insult was intended, Lady Lilly!" Percival said quickly, hands up as he backed away. He turned the defensive gesture into the lead-in for a bow. "In fact, if you would do me the honor of the_ first_ dance of the evening?"

"Accepted!" Lilly flashed Chris a triumphant smile.

Chris and Borus exchanged amused glances, then the blond knight stepped forward. "Milady, if you would be willing..."

"I wasn't really planning..." Chris began, but Borus looked so dejected she changed course quickly. "But I would be delighted to dance with a friend. Perhaps a cotillion?" She named a patterned country dance, the only one she'd really enjoyed when she'd learned it as a squire. It was also not usually the opening dance of the ball; she'd be able to put it off.

Borus agreed readily.

Percival turned then, a challenging look on his face, and Chris hastily changed the subject, away from dancing and dresses. "Has anyone seen Leo? I wasn't sure if he and his wife were coming."

"Wife? Oh, of course." Percival tapped his forehead with a forefinger "I guess it's still strange to think of Leo as married to our old training mistress."

Borus snorted. "It was scarcely two months ago, and you stood sword-bearer for the ceremony. How could you forget?"

Lilly frowned suddenly. While the two men recalled the details of their comrade's wedding, she dug in her reticule for something and leaned in towards Chris.

"If you're dancing after all, you'll need this," she whispered. Louder, she said, "Now that we're in the proper lighting, I see that your fan simply _does not_ look right with your dress. Change with me," she commanded, producing a fan from her purse and offering it to Chris.

"All right," Chris agreed, mystified, and exchanged fans. "Sorry, Borus, you were saying something?"

"I was wondering if you knew when Roland was due to return from his travels," the blond man said, absently brushing off the cuff of his sleeve. "He's looking for the Buskers we met in the war, yes?"

Chris shrugged, and Lilly clicked her tongue. Amused at the correction, she spread her fan and tried to mimic the maybe-maybe-not gesture Lilly had used earlier. "He didn't say where he was going, but he asked for leave until spring. He did promise to return as swiftly as possible if the peace doesn't hold."

"So you're saying Roland's not here?" Lilly sounded mildly outraged. "How dare he! This spoils all my plans for the evening."

"All your plans?" Chris asked distractedly, studying the fan Lilly had given her. Now that she had it open, she saw the inside face was covered with what superficially looked like sheet music. Upon a closer look, though, she couldn't make any of it out - it didn't look like the notation they'd used in the church choir when she'd been a girl. How was this supposed to help her with dancing?

Lilly tossed her hair. "I was going to dance with all of Zexen's Mighty Knights. Well, except you."

"Dance with Louis, then." Chris carefully closed the fan. "He should be coming off his duty-shift in an hour or so."

Lilly flicked her fan dismissively. "Your squire? No thank you. He's much too short. We'd look silly together."

Chris blinked at her friend. "Didn't you notice when we talked to him at the door? In boots he's almost as tall as you."

"_That_ was _Louis_?"

"You really didn't recognize him?" Chris went to hide a smile with her hand, then remembered herself and used her fan instead. "He'll be heartbroken."

"I don't blame her," Percival put in. "I could hardly recognize the lad myself. He's shooting up like corn in summer."

Of course Borus had to rib Percival for his agricultural metaphor, and the conversation ambled along from there, stepping lightly from the situation at Iksay - "you should see it, it's like the Lizards never visited the place" - to the conditions on the road from Tinto - 'The mountain roads are an absolute _disgrace_."

"Ah! Here comes Salome," Percival said suddenly, interrupting an exchange between Borus and Lilly about Calerian markets. He nodded in the direction directly behind Chris and Lily. "And he has quite the fashionable beauty with him. They make quite a pair. Who is she, I wonder?"

Only the knowledge that Percival was probably taking a turn baitingher kept her head from swiveling as sharply as Lilly's did. Instead, she turned sedately, and found her smile broadening when she saw her strategist and the familiar blonde curls of the woman who accompanied him. Percival had been right about one thing - they did make quite a striking pair, he in a russet coat, she in a similarly-colored gown. Chris took a step back from Percival, making a place in the circle for the arriving siblings.

"Milady Chris. Lady Lilly. Lord Borus. Lord Percival." Salome greeted them all with a bow, then extended a hand towards the woman at his side. "My sister, Miss Rachel Harras."

Rachel curtseyed, her blonde curls bobbing with her. "It is a privilege to be in the company of so many of Zexen's Mighty Knights," she murmured politely. "And of course the First Lady of Tinto."

"It's good to see you again, Miss Rachel," Lilly said grandly. "I did enjoy our time together at Lord Borus's tea."

Percival looked disappointed that his efforts to tease had come to nothing. "So that's how you knew each other." Then he brightened. "Will you be dancing tonight, Miss Rachel?"

"Every time, if I can find the partners." Her smile broadened. "I confess that's why I asked Salome to make certain we were all introduced."

"You should join us in a set for the first dance," Lilly said grandly. "It's a four-pair minuet. We've got three right here, then; Leo and his lady can be the fourth."

Borus immediately turned a hopeful gaze at Chris, but checked himself. Apparently he'd realized asking her would rather rudely leave Rachel partnered with her brother for the opening dance, as if she were still a child who could not be trusted to with strangers, because he turned to the blonde young woman and bowed. "Would you do me the honor of the first dance?"

"I would, and gladly! And then you can tell my brother if his bruised feet were worth it." It took Chris a moment to connect Rachel's remark with the discussion they'd had at Borus's.

"Please do," Salome put in. The last gentleman in the group that Lilly had declared would dance together, he turned to Chris with an mild, inquiring look.

She resisted the urge to throw up her hands in a warding gesture, contenting herself with a shake of the head and a polite smile. "I'll sit this one out, if that's all right."

Her friend was thankfully unsurprised by her refusal. "By all means," he assured her with a faint smile.

"But then we'll need to find another pair to fill out our set," Lilly complained.

Rachel looked about to reply when her eyes slid past Lilly to something beyond. Chris glanced in the direction of the other woman's gaze, and saw a vaguely familiar young man in the dress uniform of a low-ranking officer. The pattern of chevrons placed him in the quartermaster's staff before her recollection could.

Salome had noticed his sister's attention wander, too. "Forgive me, Lady Chris, everyone, but I am afraid we aren't quite finished making our hellos. If you'll excuse us?" He inclined his head politely.

"I'll see you at the first dance!" Rachel promised, and the siblings departed.

"He didn't comment on your dress," Lilly remarked, watching them go. "Or even bat an eye."

"No, he didn't," Chris agreed, watching her strategist introduce his sister to a mixed group that included the soldier Rachel had been batching. She felt relief at being spared another round of awkward comments and questions, tinged with a curious sliver of regret.

Borus shrugged. "That's Salome for you. Nothing fazes him."

"You mean he didn't already know?" Percival asked.

"If he did, it's not because I told him." Chris turned her fan-hand palm up. "But I hardly swore the dressmaker to secrecy - there may have been some rumor circulating."

"Our vice-captain always seems to have his finger on the pulse of things," Borus agreed. "I imagine he hears of it every time you so much as sneeze up at Iksay, Percival."

Percival looked amused, then startled, and then the corners of his mouth dropped into almost a grimace. "No doubt."

"We give thanks to the Goddess for allowing us to gather here today," a loud but reedy male voice announced from the front of the room, and everyone politely turned to face Councilman Schultheiss as he gave the ball's opening address.

It was written anew every year, even if the contents were similar - thanks to the Goddess's grace and the more material contributions of Zexen's wealthiest nobles and merchants for allowing the ball to be held, thanks to the Goddess's guidance and the wisdom of men for bringing the nation to its fifty-seventh year, thanks to the Goddess's favor and the courage of the Silver Maiden - Lilly snorted and elbowed Chris at the mention of her embarrassing appellation - the Mighty Knights, and the soldiers under their command for protecting the borders. Let the next year be fruitful, etc etc.

Chris listened carefully to the brief mention of the peace treaty - so recently and exhaustingly brokered with the Grasslands - as "a new chapter in the history of this great nation", which, since it was such a public statement, Chris took to be a sign that the council would not be turning on a dime and ordering her to burn down Karaya again any time soon. Budehuc was hailed as having played a "crucial role" - actual acknowledgement of Thomas's accomplishments there, or a jab at his father?

The speech concluded, and on cue, the musicians began to play Zexen's national hymn. People milled around again, but more purposefully, finding partners for the first dance. Her friends joined them, looking for another couple to join their set. Chris withdrew from the open floor to stand by the wall and avoid the eyes of several young men who looked hopefully in her direction.

She felt no small relief when the hymn ended and the musicians lead straight into the slow, triple-beat measures of the opening dance. She'd evaded anyone seeking a partner, and now she could be at ease, at least until the dance ended.

Standing a little away from others who had opted not to dance, Chris settled unthinkingly into a parade rest stance, hands clasped behind her back, and took in the whirl of color and wink of gems on the dance floor. It was quite a spectacle if she didn't let her eyes linger on individual dancers (some were markedly better than others). It was hard to break the habit, developed by supervising countless practices, that drew her eyes to arrhythmic and stiff movements. When she caught herself assessing a particularly awkward pair, she shook her head at herself and searched for her friends in the crowd, instead.

Apparently Lilly had located and browbeat the Gallens, and Salome had found a more willing partner, because her friends were indeed dancing in a short line of four pairs. Lilly was clearly enjoying herself. She and Percival were both energetic dancers, adding little flourishes to their minuet as they stepped together and away that made the normally staid dance look almost flirtatious. Well, if any among her friends could do that, Chris supposed, it would be those two. Amused, she turned her eye to the others in the set.

Borus's dancing was not as inspired as Percival's, but it was still graceful, the same sure, fluid movements she saw in the practice courts translating well to more a peaceful art. Salome, too, danced well, although in his case what drew her eye was his footwork more than his deportment. A taller and heavier man than Borus, his steps were surprisingly light, perhaps lighter than Borus's, and precise.

Their partners were good too, although Chris found it harder to judge with full skirts obscuring most of their legs and the frequent dips hiding their feet. Salome's partner was a timid-looking young woman that Chris vaguely recognized as a councilman's daughter. Her movements looked practiced, although not as natural as Rachel's. Her strategist's sister also seemed surer when the dance took her up on her toes, and - yes, she was adding flourishes too, although not so many as Lilly, perhaps because her partner Borus's dancing was plainer.

But the biggest surprise of the evening were Leo and his wife, the latter of whom Chris caught herself staring at unabashedly for several seconds. First of all, because they were dancing, and looked happy to be doing so. Normally Leo shared her own dislike of the pastime and more than once she'd arranged for him to be on guard duty, at his request, during a ball. Secondly, because of Dame Aurella's attire.

Chris had some notion, now, of the shock the others had felt at her own appearance - her friend's wife, the tall, stocky mistress-at-arms who'd worn a fairly plain riding habit to her own wedding, was also wearing a gown. Lady Gallen's dress was dark as befitted her age, but the deep navy suited her well, and with the gold trim and white lace of the collar she looked quite - and this was a word Chris had never thought to apply to the stern woman she'd collected bruises from throughout her adolescence - lovely.

The dance drew to a close, and Chris shook her head, amused at her reaction. She'd have to be more patient with others' comments about her appearance, after her own bout of gawking.

The dancers broke out of their orderly lines and dispersed; Chris had to make her way around several clusters to approach her friends. Salome and Lilly had vanished by the time she neared the group, but Borus, Percival, and Leo were still standing in a loose knot, with Rachel and Aurella chatting amiably a short distance away. She paused when a quick step around a distracted couple sent her skirts spinning out and petticoats brushing her legs. Normally she'd join her friends, but maybe she ought to try speaking with the women instead? She couldn't imagine the conversation dwelling long on fashion or dance or other frivolity with Aurella there.

As she stood midway between both groups, debating, she realized that although the women were speaking too softly to be heard, she could hear the men's friendly chatter quite clearly.

"So, how's married life treating you, Leo?" Borus asked the towering older man with a friendly clap on the shoulder.

Leo beamed. "Quite well. You bachelor fellows have no idea what you're missing."

"Dame Aurella is quite a woman," Percival remarked.

"Too much so," Borus commented dryly. "I have had encounters with enemy troops gentler than some of her sessions at the practise yard."

Percival eyed Leo sideways. "Hopefully she's not too much woman for Leo to manage. He's not exactly the practiced romantic."

"I've had no complaints," Leo said smugly. "Would you two even know what to do with a lady if you had one?"

"Well, perhapsI wouldn't." Percival's tone went flat, his expression darker. "But our Borus here… I'm sure he has an idea or two for when he finally wins the heart of our silver-haired goddess."

"Hah!" Leo folded his arms. "After she disarmed him at their last practice match? How can he expect to court a lady who knows her way around a sword better than he does?"

Borus turned red and folded his arms as Percival laughed. "At least I fight with a sword. And I don't feel the need to add to my," he coughed deliberately, "_consequence_ by wearing an overlarge letter opener." He nodded at the ceremonial sword Leo had belted at his side.

Chris shook her head, glad she had her fan to mask her expression. The conversation was tame by soldiers' standards. But really...

"Lady Chris! There you are." Rachel was gesturing with her fan, indicating Chris should come stand with her. She was alone now; Aurella had drifted a bit away, speaking with a squire in purple brocade.

Chris found herself hesitating again. She could hear the musicians tuning their instruments again.

"Come, let's get out of the way." Surprisingly forward given they'd only met twice before, Rachel put a hand on Chris's elbow and led her gently to the edge of the room. Behind them, groups of couples arrayed themselves in squares for the next dance.

"I'm just surprised you'd sit out a dance," Chris told her when they were clear.

"Oh, I wouldn't normally, but I've wanted a chance to speak with you for a while, and this is the only way to have you to myself. I hope you don't mind?"

Chris blinked, a little taken aback. She was accustomed to citizens wanting to speak with the famous Silver Maiden, but usually they weren't quite so bald about it. "It's all right," she said, as politely as she could manage. She'd wanted to speak more with other women, it was true, but the other woman's behavior earlier gave her misgivings. What on earth could she talk about with a fashion-conscious lady like Rachel who was clearly looking for a suitor?

"Oh, good! I've heard so much about you from my brother, but mostly about what you _do_. When it comes to what you're like as a person he's careful what he says. Out of respect for your privacy, of course," she added reassuringly. "But it means I'm left to try and draw a picture of you from the sparse details he does share." She tipped her fan this way and that. "So all I really know is that you're good friends with him, that you don't care for dancing, and how you take your tea. And that you prefer people to speak plainly."

Well, this was certainly not what she'd been expecting. Trying not to show her surprise, Chris began with an apology. "I'm sorry, I wish I could offer the same compliment, but Salome rarely speaks of his family. Few of the Knights do." Leo was the exception - but of course his wife was a soldier too. "I do know you manage the Harras family estates," she offered. Other than what she'd learned at Borus's the other day, it was the only thing she knew about the other woman, although until just now she hadn't thought to put Rachel's face and name to that fact.

"Oh." Rachel seemed surprised. "I didn't think he'd mention that."

"It was during the war. We were all discussing how our households were managing. Salome said he had nothing to worry about," she recalled. The memory prompted her to take a closer look at the woman before her. Yes, Rachel wore her blonde hair in a tower of curls to rival Lilly's, and even Chris could tell the cut of her burgundy dress was in the latest mode, from the cap sleeves to the broad skirts held aloft by side-hoops. But she had the same sharp eyes as her brother. "Coming from Salome that's high praise."

Rachel colored slightly. "Thank you. I do try my best. But compared to running the entire army…" She shrugged. "Well, managing one family's estates is a rather paltry accomplishment."

"I do have help. I couldn't manage without the others, least of all your brother," Chris pointed out, trying to smile reassuringly. She thought a moment, then said, feeling rather as if she were extending a hand to help someone across a ditch that was neither as deep nor wide as she'd expected, "You know, it's odd. At Brass Castle we're all living in close quarters - there's no escaping one another, especially not at meals." War camps were worse, of course - more than once as a Lieutenant she'd had to give reports to Galahad while he shaved. "And yet now I've gone weeks without speaking to any of my friends. I feel somewhat adrift."

"Then cast an anchor and come to tea with us," Rachel coaxed. "Visit with my brother again. And me, too, if you don't mind." She smiled.

"Gladly," Chris replied, and an answering smile came quite naturally. "I'll watch for the invitation."

The other woman's smile weakened. "We've sent several already. You might answer one of those first."

"What?" Chris felt her limbs stiffen and still as her attention narrowed sharply on the woman in front of her. She chose her next words carefully. "I haven't received any invitations from your family."

"You haven't?" Rachel's face showed her surprise turn quickly to perhaps the same wariness Chris felt. "None of them? We've sent three."

Chris shook her head. "I've received only official reports from your brother, and nothing from you or any other member of your household." Her thoughts raced. "One going astray I might understand. But three?"

"Make that five," an older woman's voice added. Chris looked up into the grim features of Madam Gallen. "Leo and I sent two, before we came to town."

"The only invitations I've received from any of the Six Knights were a pair of teas with Borus," Chris said slowly. "I assumed you and Leo," she nodded at Aurella, "would want some peace and quiet together, so I thought nothing of it." She looked at Rachel. "But I'd wondered about Salome's silence." _What other letters have gone missing?_ she wondered. There could be official reports that had be lost, their contents compromised; other letters could have been intercepted, from the Council or even some of her former comrades-in-arms from the Fire Bringer war...

"For his part, Salome found your lack of response… uncharacteristic, I think, is the word he used." Rachel responded, her eyes intent on Chris's face, as though she were gauging a reaction. "I think he was hurt, but he did his best to hide it."

"I'm more worried by the fact that correspondence to the Captain of Zexen's military has gone missing," Aurella broke in. Her tone made her opinion clear: hurt feelings were unimportant.

Rachel's eyes widened; apparently the thought had not occurred to her. So what had made her wary earlier? Well, that was not a tangle Chris had time to unpick. "Exactly." She looked at the two women, motioning for them to step closer. When they did, she said quietly, "Aurella, please tell Leo. Find out if there's anything else he's sent me, personal or Knight's business - I've received nothing from him at all. Rachel, tell your brother-"

"I will. You'll need to speak with him, discreetly, I assume?" Rachel brought up her fan and held it beside her face, as if she were sharing gossip rather than discussing a matter of national security. "Right away, or-"

Chris hated inaction, but there wasn't really anything that they could do about it during the ball. "By the end of the evening will do."

Rachel nodded. "I'll take my time, then. Better if we don't all disperse right away?"

"My thoughts exactly," Leo's wife put in tersely.


	4. Murder

Lady Gallen took her leave first, leaving Chris to maintain a facade of friendly chatter with Rachel before the other woman went in search of her brother. Chris did her best, but it was hard to pay attention to a conversation when she had so much to think about. Rachel, thankfully, seemed to understand and carried most of the conversational weight, talking easily about hosting the Gallens while they were in town.

Eventually they parted, Rachel ostensibly in search of a partner for the next dance (she'd make an indirect and winding way to Salome), Chris to the refreshment table. She selected a glass of sherry without much enthusiasm and sipped it, thinking hard. She could take advantage of her dance with Borus to find out what mail he'd sent her. Percival too, since he'd probably ask her to dance at some point (if only to irritate Borus). Lady Gallen would talk to Leo. Contacting Roland would take time, but at least anything he'd have sent her would be written knowing other eyes would see it. Of her knights, that left only Salome. So she needed to find a way to discover if correspondence from others had gone missing...

"Lady Chris, may I take a moment to say that you are even more stunning in a ball gown than any of us could have imagined."

She looked up into the smiling face of the longest-seated member of the Council. At least, his mouth smiled; like many of the men in his station the expression never seemed to reach his eyes.

"Thank you, Councilman Gelte," she replied, hoping her own smile looked sufficiently sincere. Demons take these social events; at least at council meetings she wasn't expected to look _happy_ about the orders they gave her. "You're too kind."

"Probably," he murmured, just on the edge of audible. "Lady Gelte was most unhappy that you didn't come for dinner last week. Doubly so, since she did wish to make the acquaintance of Lady Pendragon. How did you come to host such an estimable guest?"

Chris hadn't received any invitation from him; internally she added it to the count of the missing letters and tried her best to keep her smile from degenerating into a sort of rictus. Goddess, she was_ not_ meant for this sort of intrigue.

Still, his implication was clear, even to her; if Chris was too ill-mannered to even politely decline an invitation from such a senior councilman, she could not be trusted to host the daughter of Tinto's president. "Oh, Lilly and I have been friends for years," she said, trying for a casually dismissive wave of her fan. "She was one of our allies in the last war, you'll recall." _And I'd like to see you _try_ to get Lilly to agree to stay with someone else, or do anything else she doesn't want to. _"And please accept my sincere apologies both to you and Lady Gelde - I must have overlooked your invitation in the flurry of the past few weeks."

"Oh, that's right, I had forgotten. You and Lady Pendragon met at the sesquicentennial celebration. A memorable event for all of us, I daresay."

"Very." She knew she was gritting her teeth and didn't particularly care. It had not been her most shining of moments, but she'd been a squire then. It was beyond the pale for Councilman Gelte to bring it up so baldly.

"Do try not to start any brawls this time, Lady Chris. This is a ballroom, not a battlefield," he told her in warning tones.

Well, there was no good way to answer that, although in the privacy of her own head she had a few choice retorts. "Sir," she replied, fist thumping her chest in salute as if receiving orders.

Strains of music from the front of the room signaled an upcoming dance, and a moment later Borus appeared at her elbow. It was almost a relief to be able to cite the promised cotillion with her friend and escape the conversation.

Her relief was short-lived: dancing with Borus was an awkward affair. She had seen her knight dance perfectly well earlier, but with her he was a tense, rigid partner. His hands would grasp hers too tightly, or barely brush them. It didn't help matters that Chris apparently didn't remember the dance as well as she had thought, given her frequent small missteps - mostly leading with the wrong foot, or starting to turn in the wrong direction. Twice, to her horror, she even trod on his foot. After that she focused carefully on the steps and the beat, watching the other women in their set from the corner of her eye. Between her own difficulties and the occasional partner-changes with other pairs in the set, there was no way she could bring up the issue of missing letters now. She'd have to wait until her attention wasn't divided.

His expression was... ardent. Whenever they came face-to-face Chris had the uncomfortable sensation that he was trying to gaze earnestly into her own eyes. It was just as well they rarely came face-to-face.

After a painfully long time the dance ended, but almost immediately after the musicians were tuning their instruments again - an indication that another would begin shortly.

"Lady Chris." Borus's eyes were still intent on her.

She kept her smile bland. "Lord Borus. Thank you for the dance." She wasn't sure which she feared more at this point - a confession of his love, or a request for a second dance.

She was spared from either Percival materialized at her elbow. "Milady Chris! May I have this dance? It's the Foxhunt Reel."

Borus scowled openly.

"Oh, come on, you can't expect me to let you monopolize our captain, can you?" Percival asked carelessly. "Besides, Borus, you know it's terribly gauche for a lady to dance twice in a row with the same gentleman. Unless, of course, you want tongues to wag..."

Chris put her hand on his forearm. "Percival, I'll dance with you on the condition that you stop taunting Borus."

Borus, after a growl and a sulky glare, surrendered her to the other knight's care and stalked off towards the refreshments. Chris watched him go with a vague but familiar sense of guilt - Borus's bouts of romantic pursuit often left her feeling so.

"I'm beginning to think I should have come in uniform after all," she said quietly to Percival, who had caught the direction of her gaze.

"It's hardly your fault if Lord Borus is as stiff as a board and as graceful as a chicken," Percival told her, mock serious. "How could he possibly expect to woo you with that sort of performance? All it served was to show us all how ill-suited a couple you two are, even if you looked very pretty together when you stood still. Did he know you would be wearing blue, I wonder?" His eyes narrowed. "Or did _you_ know he would be wearing blue?" Was she just out of the habit of shrugging them off, or were Percival's taunts more barbed and numerous than usual tonight?

"My poor dancing wasn't Borus's fault," she informed him coolly as the music began, and then needed to pay attention to the start of the dance. Once she was sure she recalled the pattern of the steps, she continued, "And stop trying to stir up trouble. I don't know why you think I'd pay any attention to what color he or anyone else planned to wear tonight. I already have enough of a headache." The reel was a lively dance done mostly at a distance; when they first stepped close, hands meeting briefly, she said quietly, "I have letters going missing."

Percival's eyebrows rose, but he didn't try to respond - they were immediately stepping away once more. And when they next stepped forward, their hands missed and her toes barked his; Chris realized to her embarrassment she'd lead with the wrong foot again. She turned the wrong way, too, as they withdrew.

She could avoid looking at the faces of the other dancers in the line, but not her partner's; on her third mistake it was clear Percival was trying his best not to laugh. When their hands met again, he clasped hers and gave her a little tug as he stepped back, swinging her around in the correct direction.

Chris redoubled her attention to the steps and managed to get through the rest of the dance without error. The dance was long and energetic, exertion coloring the faces of several other dancers and masking her own embarrassment, and so she was almost enjoying it by the time the music ended.

"Still going to blame Borus for my bad last dance?" she asked him. It came out a little more bitterly than she'd intended, and she smiled to soften it.

"Oh, no, I know better than to criticize my captain in public," Percival replied easily. He leaned in, eyebrows arched flirtatiously, and murmured, "Letters have gone missing?"

Chris nodded and tried not to make a face at his outward manner; at least he was providing a cover for their discussion. "Have you sent any since the last one I answered?"

He shook his head. "No, since I knew I'd see you here."

"Well." She wasn't going to solve this all tonight, and they were starting to attract some attention, standing so close as they spoke. One pair of young women were watching them closely, and another group was having a whispered conversation that wasn't quite hidden by their fans. "We'll talk more later. Go enjoy the ball and your bevy of admirers."

Percival chuckled dryly. "Admirers? Oh, of course. Another time, then, Lady Chris." He stepped back, bowed with a flourish, and then headed immediately towards the group of whisperers.

Temporarily unescorted and with more than enough to think about, Chris made her way amongst the crowd without really registering who she exchanged nods with or murmured polite greetings at.

She stepped aside automatically as a dark-haired man in a coat of forest green strode briskly towards her, eyes intent on something beyond her. But he sidestepped, too, in the same direction, and they nearly collided. He stumbled, overbalanced, and fell forward; she nearly tripped on the hem of her skirts backing away. The only thing saving her from a fall were her good reflexes; the man wasn't so lucky.

"My apologies," she said, offering him a hand up, which he took. "Are you all right?"

"The fault was all mine, Lady Chris," the man replied smoothly. His voice was familiar.

Frowning, Chris took a closer look at him as he straightened. The velvet and gold trim on his coat made him look like a town dandy rather than the fighter she'd travelled with, and his hair was now black, but she'd recognize that face and (once he was standing) the cocky posture anywhere.

Her surprise must have shown on her face, because Nash grinned his familiar - and infuriating - roguish grin. "Might I prove my lamentable clumsiness was a mere fluke by asking you to dance?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"May I have this dance, milady?" Nash clarified, casting appraising eyes from her head to toe. Chris set her jaw – Nash was something of a friend, but there were _limits_ – and agreed, stepping out to the floor to find the line. To her surprise and irritation, Nash took her right hand and led her a little away from the other dancers.

"I believe this next dance is a _Schleifer_," he told her, flashing that smile that he clearly thought was charming but just made it harder for Chris to remember he _wasn't_ a complete idiot. He placed his right hand high on her left arm, almost at her shoulder, and she grimaced. Normally the woman chose the distance at which they danced, but he'd moved before she had a chance, and with Nash's hand high on her arm they'd have to stand closer than she really liked. The proximity should've been no worse than grappling on the practice courts, and he'd clapped her on the shoulder in a friendly way more than a few times when they'd been travelling together during the last war, but here the nearness and touch felt uncomfortably intimate.

The _Schleifer _was a partner dance to three beats a measure, consisting of a series of glides, promenades, and turns. It wasn't as enjoyable as the reel had been – Chris wasn't sure how much of this was the fact that she didn't trust Nash to keep his hands in their proper places during the promenades, or the myriad questions his presence raised. As far as she was concerned, the only thing worse than dancing at the Federation Day Ball was politics - and between Nash's unexpected appearance and dyed hair, there was no doubt that he was here for the latter. Perhaps he knew about the letters?

Thankfully, things went smoothly enough for the first few back-and-forths – or were they called stanzas, like in a poem? Chris hadn't paid too much attention to the terminology when she'd learned to dance from Sir Galahad, and she hadn't needed to review them when teaching her own squire – after giving a particularly disastrous pair of lessons, she'd turned Louis over to Salome and Borus for proper instruction.

While she was musing over the technical vocabulary she lacked, they reached the end of the first verses-or-whatever, the pattern change. Automatically, Chris turned to her left, and found herself stumbling into her partner instead of stepping away, and tripping over his feet in the bargain.

Nash caught her by the arm; she found her footing and righted herself. Beet red with embarrassment, she turned to face him again.

"Shall we resume?" Nash asked, bowing over an extended hand.

Chris shook her head. "I think I've made enough of a fool of myself for one evening."

"But I insist." There was an undertone to his words, a look in his eye – just a flash of the very dangerous man that she'd known in the Fire Bringer war – and an instant later it was gone. Chris sighed and took his extended hand, curtsying to his bow. A moment later, they caught the beat once more and resumed dancing.

At the first point in the dance when partners drew close together then promenaded, arms clasped behind one another, he whispered in her ear. "Stick close to Lilly tonight." Then he released her hands and stepped away, while Chris spun off in the wrong direction once again.

She shot him a glare as he laughed softly. _That_ was all he was going to tell her? It was so vague as to be nearly useless – was she supposed to be protecting Lilly from making a fool of herself, from being seduced by a man with political designs, from abduction?

And if the threat was violence, what was Chris supposed to do apparently unarmed and in a _ball gown?_ Surely he couldn't know about the knife she'd tucked in her stays. She recalled his earlier, assessing look, and felt her face start to redden. Nash was a spy and a good one; it _was_ possible he had noticed the knife under her dress.

He took her by the hand again; they bowed (Chris remembering to curtsey last minute) and resumed the dance."You're resourceful," he told her – cementing her mortification.

He was impossibly smug for the remainder of the dance, although twice more he took advantage of their proximity to whisper in her ear – "Tinto Masons and Merchants" – a rival political group of Lilly's father, which at least told her who might be moving against Lilly tonight – and right as the dance ended, an unspeakably _vulgar_ suggestion for what she might do later that evening that made her gasp in outrage.

"I had to try!" he told her cheerfully, dodging her backhand as she wrenched her hand free of him. She stalked off the dance floor, seething.

Only to walk straight into Borus.

"Did Nash offer you insult, milady?" Borus asked, his brown eyes flashing. It seemed he'd recognized the Harmonian agent despite the disguise.

"Yes, he did." she said tightly. "His usual advances."

"And he's a married man." Borus scowled.

Chris winced. "That... actually made things worse." She cleared her throat. "I need something to drink, and to find Lilly. Walk with me?"

Borus immediately offered her his arm. Chris took it and tried to not to sigh as she noticed the occasional glare from other young women. Back at Brass Castle's, Borus's infatuation with her was awkward enough, but no one blamed _her_ for his behavior.

Conveniently, Lilly was at the refreshment table when they arrived, holding a small glass of punch and scanning the crowd. "Leo should be easier to spot in a crowd, mountain that he is," she complained to Chris.

"Look along the walls. I don't think either he or his wife are much for dancing," Chris replied. "I don't know how you talked them into joining your set earlier."

"There he is." Borus nodded his head in the direction of the well-dressed couple, who were approaching the refreshments themselves.

Should she tell Lilly about Nash's message? Chris wondered as the three of them met up with Leo and his wife. She made her formal hellos, since she hadn't earlier, then let the others carry the conversation while she considered the matter. Lilly chatted easily, asking Dame Aurella countless questions about her dress, her jewels, and her courtship with Leo.

On one hand, Chris knew she'd be furious if anyone withheld similar information from her. On the other, Nash had gone to great pains to tell her without any chance of interception (did he know her mail was going astray? was _he_ the reason she was missing letters?); getting Lilly aside might be a little trickier. And then there was the undeniable fact that Lilly might dismiss the warning as a joke. Lilly could be headstrong, especially when she thought others were worrying too much about something she found inconsequential; she might even make a point of dodging Chris's escort.

Goddess above, she needed to talk to Salome. There was just too much to sort out and too little information; hopefully her second-in-command and the intelligence he routinely gleaned from his network of contacts could shed some light on the situation.

Lilly was still interrogating Aurella, who seemed a bit taken aback by the relentless young woman. Leo had wandered away, and Borus looked like he wanted to make his own escape. Chris put a hand on his arm and drew him aside.

"If I'm not able to, keep an eye on Lilly for me," she said quietly. "But subtly." She wouldn't have needed to add this last for Percival, but he wasn't here; Borus was.

Borus sighed, nodded, and they stepped back to rejoin the conversation just as Lilly was coaxing Leo's wife to join them for the next dance, a quadrille.

The older woman declined to reprise her earlier performance, at least so soon, but Lilly was not perturbed in the least. She shamelessly recruited another pair of women and three more men to complete the set of eight they would need for the quadrille. Nash's warning ringing in her mind, Chris let herself be cajoled into joining the group. It was the easiest way to stay near her friend.

They danced twice more, with wealthy merchants and a newly-elected councilman. While none were as disastrous as the one with Nash, they were still exhausting - she had to keep an eye on Lilly as well as the other dancers and mind her own steps. Carrying on a conversation while dancing was right out, although none of her partners commented.

Between the dances she followed Lilly from group to group, chatting with a mix of young men and women. The women smiled or gawked or smirked, depending on their natures and (she assumed) how much of her dancing they'd seen.

The men praised her fulsomely - her beauty, her grace (hadnone of _them _seen her dance with Nash?), her nobility, her beauty again. It was hard not to roll her eyes and sigh at the flattery.

"Lady Chris, surely you were meant to grace the ballrooms rather than the battlefields!" proclaimed a merchant bachelor whose name she'd already forgotten.

She smiled tightly and tried not to bristle. He meant it as a compliment, she thought, but... "I don't know about that. All my training is for the battlefield, after all."

"Nonsense. Let me prove it to you at the next opportunity."

Borus, who had been scowling at the man since he'd joined the group, stepped forward. "Lady Chris. Do you have a partner for the next _Schleifer_?"

"I say, I was in the middle of asking her myself," the other man protested. "And you've danced with her already. Have some consideration for the rest of us!"

The two men glowered at each other, then as one turned to her. Chris stood there awkwardly under their expectant gaze until she realized that she was expected to resolve the conflict.

"May I cut in?" another familiar voice asked, gravely. Chris stepped away from Borus and the merchant, smiling at her strategist in undisguised relief. Rescue at last!

"Salome!" she greeted him cheerfully. "Yes, of course."

He bowed. When he righted, he raised an eyebrow at her, then took her hand. Chris sighed as he led her back out to the floor. Behind them, Lilly and a harangued-looking Borus followed.

"I was hoping for something else," she told him as they turned to face each other for the start of the _Schleifer_. Dropping hands, they exchanged bows. She lifted her left hand; he raised his right to meet it. "Namely, an excuse to stop dancing."

Salome's eyes narrowed slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching. She wouldn't have noticed the humor in his face if she hadn't been looking for it. "As much as I'd like to grant one, milady, you needed to speak with me?" he asked quietly, and then continued in more normal tones, "I thought you might like to go out on a success." He raised his left hand but did not take hold of her arm; she realized that unlike Nash, he was waiting for her to set the distance at which they danced.

Chris nodded minutely in answer to his question as she placed her right hand on his forearm, just below the elbow - a comfortable distance, but close enough to talk quietly. The warm weight of his own hand settling lightly above her elbow was reassuring.

"You can't have been watching my earlier dances," she said, stepping forwards with her left foot automatically as the music began. A few measures later they reached the end of the steps, and turned, spinning away and back together, and repeated the process. The second time their spins left them facing forward for the promenade. "I think I put both Borus and Percival on the casualty list. A townsman, too." A moment later, when the dance brought them face-to-face and close, she added softly, "Nash in disguise. He had a message."

"I will keep it in mind when I set the marching order tomorrow," Salome told her, for the benefit of whoever might be listening.

It took another repetition until they were back to standing close enough for her to relay what Nash had told her. "Stick close to Lilly. Tinto Masons and Merchants."

"How very droll," he said, smiling as if she'd told a joke, and Chris remembered to check her own expression.

She continued in light tones, "I hope we'll see you at tea next week. Did Rachel mention it?"

"She did," Salome responded immediately, without any sign of surprise, and Chris found herself relaxing slightly. It was reassuring to know they were on the same page. "Is there anyone you were hoping would be there?"

She took her time in constructing her answer. "You and the Gallens, of course. I'm not sure about Borus, and Percival said he didn't think so. But Councilman and Lady Gelte might be an interesting addition."

At the mention of the council member, Salome's hand tightened slightly on her bicep. "You're sure?"

"The councilman said his wife was hoping to meet Lilly." Chris turned left again, Salome right, and they stepped forward into the final promenade. "I imagine we'll hear the same from others." The dance concluded, they stepped apart and bowed.

"Thank you. I'll be seeing you next week, then?" she said, to let him know she had no more to to report.

"Of course, milady." Despite the gravity of the situation - compromised communications and an unknown threat against Lilly - she thought his expression looked a little lighter, his social smile a little more genuine.

"Chris!" Lilly appeared at her side and tugged her arm. "We need to _talk_." Her tone threatened disappointment and dire consequences, most likely over things most people would consider trivialities. Well, at least this way she wouldn't need to chase her friend down.

She nodded farewell to Salome and let herself be led aside. "Yes?"

"This nonsense has gone on long enough. _Why_ are you not using the fan I lent you?"

Chris blinked at her friend and gave a little fluttering wave with the object in question. "I thought I was?"

"No, you were not," Lilly returned impatiently. "I saw your dance with Borus. _And_ that disaster with the man in green." The expression on her face suggested that the very memory pained her. She went on. "You were doing better, but then that last dance… well, thank goodness your strategist is terpsichoreally ambidextrous."

"What are you talking about?"

Lilly looked impatient. "Stop dodging and explain. I _saw_ you look at it, so you must know it has all the steps for the dances. Why else would I have given it to you?"

"You mean the strange sheet music?" Chris asked, spreading the fan. "I didn't recognize the notation."

As she spoke, she felt a faint, familiar sensation – like a wind blowing across her face and hands had suddenly stopped. She reached for the sword she wasn't wearing before the feeling even consciously registered as a magic-suppressing field.

A man on the edge of her vision turned, something flashing in his hand as he lunged at Lilly. He took her shoulder roughly and pulled her back several paces, clamping an arm around her shoulders from behind, his other hand putting a knife to her throat in a few short seconds.

"Don't move," he said in icy tones to his captive, who had begun struggling the moment she'd felt the assailant's grip. Lilly froze wide-eyed, arms stiff at her sides; moments later her lips parted in a grimace.

Chris was only dimly aware of the gasps and muted shrieks around them, as well-dressed men and women backed away, the edge of the crowd melting away like snow before a fire. A handful remained in place, but whether it was fear or discipline that kept them there she didn't have time to ponder. All of her attention was on Lilly's assailant.

He was a little taller than Lilly, which would make him roughly even height with Chris. From the way he'd moved, and the stillness with which he stood now despite the attention of the crowd, he was no amateur. He wore a dark velvet coat that could well conceal further weapons, and his hands were gloved (had he cast the Silent Lake spell, or did he have allies?), although his forehead bore no rune.

"Anyone interferes and the Tinto bitch dies, understood?" he shouted. "I'm here on behalf of the Free Merchant and Traders!"

Chris weighed her options. Grappling had never been her strongest suit, and hampered by the dress as she was, she wasn't sure she could do anything before he slit Lilly's throat. The best thing she could do for her friend was try to buy time.

"What do you want?" she asked the man warily, raising her gloved hands slowly to shoulder-level and spreading her fingers, a non-threatening gesture. "I'm Captain Lightfellow of the Zexen Knights, and Lady Pendragon is here as my guest. I have authority to negotiate."

She moved forward as she spoke, slowly, one small step at a time. The moment his knife-hand twitched in warning, she stopped. There was still a good two meters left between them.

The man sneered, otherwise unremarkable features turning ugly in a caricature of hate. "The Free Merchants don't recognize your authority, Council's doxy." For all the bile in his words, his knife-hand remained remarkably steady. There was something more going on here... "Get me a man."

Chris ground her teeth, but answering the man's insult with her own wouldn't help Lilly. "Very well," she said as calmly as she could.

"At least you're an obedient little whore," he returned nastily. Despite her cold fury, Chris noticed that his shoulders seem to relax as he spoke.

"Will you recognize my authority?" The voice, from somewhere behind her, was Salome's. "I'm Vice-Captain Harras, likewise of the Zexen Knights."

"You'll do, for all that you're sucking the Council's teat, and hers too," the man decided. "Come forward."

The knife in her stays was heavy with its presence, but she could feel it had slipped down - there was no chance of drawing it quickly enough to charge the assassin. Cursing herself for being armed only as a joke, Chris wished passionately she had her sword. Lilly apparently did, too – she was clutching her fan in a familiar white-knuckled grip in her right hand. It gave Chris an idea.

Chris mouthed, obviously, "fan" to Lilly, who stared back at her, confusion mingling with the fear and fury in her expression.

The assassin noticed, as she'd expected. "Why don't you drop your fan and raise your hands to where I can see them, just as a precaution?" he said warningly. "I don't want you getting ideas..."

Lilly's eyes narrowed and she dropped her fan, slowly raising her hands.

"I am here." As Salome stepped out of the crowd, the assassin's attention turned to him, and Chris saw his knife-hand release fractionally from its pin on Lilly's neck. Immediately Lilly's left hand - already raised - grabbed his wrist, and her right arm went up, her shoulder becoming the immediate target of his knife, rather than her vulnerable throat.

Lilly's captor reacted quickly, his knife drawing a bloody gash along her shoulder, but Chris was moving, too, fumbling for the dagger in her stays as she took the two steps to close the gap between herself and the man. Lilly bit the man's wrist and stomped his instep, and a moment later stumbled from his grasp, taking another slice to her arm.

Chris finally got her blade out and gripped properly as the assassin lunged after Lilly. She tackled the man, bringing them both to the ground and away from Lilly. Her first blow of the knife was glancing, rending the man's sleeve as they fell. The next screeched as it cut through the coat to the mail-shirt he'd hidden underneath. He struggled to bring his own weapon up, trying to roll her over and overpower her, but she'd knocked him onto his right side, on top of the arm with the knife, and now that she knew he was armored she brought her blade down into his exposed throat. Training took over; she yanked it out and stabbed him again before she had even time to register that the first blow had been mortal.

No doubt there had been screams from whoever of the crowd had remained, but it took a few moments before Chris could be sure she was hearing things properly again.


	5. Aftermath

No doubt there had been screams from whoever of the crowd had remained, but it took a few moments before Chris could be sure she was hearing things properly again. Beneath her, the assassin had already gone still, eyes sightless and chest unmoving. She left her dagger buried in the body, rolled off, and sat up.

Salome was at her side immediately, face grim and eyes dark with widened pupils. "Lady Chris! Are you all right?"

"See to Lilly," she croaked, waving him off. "I'm fine." The hand she'd waved was crimson, she noted absently, and turned to look at Lilly.

Her friend was clutching her shoulder and very pale. Salome knelt by the woman's side and gently lifted her hand from the injured shoulder to study the wound.

Ignoring him, Lilly's blue eyes met her own, wide and staring.

"He's dead," Chris said. It came out more harshly than intended.

"Good," Lilly snarled. She inhaled, her lower lip trembling, then continued in a vicious, if shaky, voice, "He ruined my dress."

A sudden blast of ice through her veins told Chris the anti-magic field had lifted; True Water was reasserting itself. Its forceful indignance at being silenced by a lesser rune's spell made her sway fractionally before she pulled herself together. Lilly would need healing, and the assassin might have poisoned his blade.

She took a deep breath, meaning to compose herself to reach for the Rune's magic, but almost immediately another blue glow surrounded herself and Lilly. The faintest flicker of an afterimage around his right hand told Chris her strategist had used his own water rune.

"I'm not hurt," she told him, a reassurance rather than a complaint, and glanced around. "We need to set up a perimeter, he might have allies -" 

"I gave the orders a moment ago," Salome said. "While you were occupied with the assassin."

Chris grimaced. "Battle blinders. My apologies."

"None needed." He took one more look at Lilly's injuries, nodded in satisfaction, and stood. A moment later he offered her a hand up; Lilly swatted it away and rose to her feet, unsteady but under her own effort. Salome stepped away from her, towards his captain.

Chris slowly climbed to her own feet, her mind running through the orders she would need to give, to gather information, to secure the hall in case the assassin had not been alone. "Make sure the guards are organized, then have Percival and Leo help you with questioning the crowd," she said, straightening her back. Percival was good with drawing people out. Leo less so, but the bigger man was intimidating, which they'd need to keep the impatient crowd in check. She raised her voice, pitching it to carry. "No one leaves here until they've been questioned. Percival, Leo, you're with Salome. Borus, pick five men and guard Lilly - we're not moving from this spot until I know the area is secure. And someone find me a sword!"

Borus would need some time to get Lilly's guard together, but Percival and Leo were already shouldering their way through the crowd. Salome turned to them and began issuing his own orders.

Confident that her second-in-command would quickly take crowd control in hand, Chris went to stand by Lilly. "We'll go home as soon as I'm certain we can do so safely," she said quietly to her friend, looking down at her gloves. The left had a few spots of blood, but the right was soaked stiff. She grimaced, but she didn't dare remove them in public - not with True Water branded so clearly on her hand.

"Good. I'm filthy. I want a bath," Lilly complained, looking down at her own stained dress and gloves."Besides, your Zexen merchantfolk lack backbone. I'm weary of them. In Tinto we wouldn't let a little thing like a dead assassin spoil a party like this." Her disdainful voice was pitched just a hair too high, her words came just slightly too fast. and Chris put her cleaner left hand on her friend's arm and gave her a quick squeeze.

Leo approached them, long enough to hand over the ceremonial sword he'd worn. "Knew there was a reason I brought this thing," he mumbled, offering the sword, sheath, and belt in both hands. "Just had the blade sharpened."

"Thank you." She let Lilly help her buckle it on, more to give her friend something to do than for need of assistance. The familiar weight at her hip was reassuring.

Borus arrived just as Leo departed. He was trailed by three men in the purple brocade of on-duty guards and two more in dress uniform, whom he'd apparently already given orders to, because they took up positions encircling the two women without so much as a gesture from Borus.

The knight himself addressed both women with a bow. "Lady Chris! Lady Lilly." His gaze lingered on Chris's face a moment, his expression pained. Then he steeled it. "We're at your service. I've called for a carriage."

Chris nodded. "Thank you. Salome will tell us when it's safe to depart."

Even as she said it, she felt impatient. She wasn't much use as a guard wearing a gown, even if she was properly armed now, and the idea of useless inactivity galled her. Her eyes traveled across the floor.

"I'm going to search the body," she told the others.

Lilly grimaced, then rounded on Borus. "If we're waiting on your strategist's judgment, we'll be here all night. Get me a chair!"

Chris knelt down beside the still form of the would-be assassin, positioning herself so that Borus's guards were at her back. She brushed her skirts back so she wouldn't trip if she needed to stand suddenly, and placed Leo's sword by her side so she wouldn't have to take the time to draw it. Not that she really needed to worry about that - this wasn't the Grasslands, where Nash had taught her a few spy's tricks for searching bodies and where they were at constant risk of attack. Funny how she was using those skills here, in civilization, so shortly after he'd shown up...

She shook off the thought. Using her cleaner left hand, she went through the outer pockets of his coat. There was an Escape Scroll in one of them, along with some more mundane items - a few potch-pieces of different denominations, a candle end, and a handkerchief. She handled the last with care despite her glove - it could've been soaked in a sleeping agent or poison - and then unbuttoned his coat.

Footfalls approached, and she looked up sharply, hand going to the hilt of the sword. She relaxed when she saw the familiar cheerful expression of her squire.

"Anything I can do to help, Lady Chris?" Louis asked, then looked at the body, his lips curling in disgust. "Er, I'll just stand guard for you…"

Chris thanked him, returning her attention to the body. The assassin had worn a fine linen shirt over the armor she'd struck earlier, the white cloth soaked crimson near his neck. The shirt had no front pockets of its own, and neither did the trousers, but there were inner pockets of the coat to go through. One was completely empty, but the other contained two papers - an invitation to the ball, and a handwritten list.

Names, Chris saw, reading over the list as she held the paper carefully by the corners. Zexen- or Tinto-style names, not Grasslander. A few looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place them.

"Bring this to Salome," she ordered her squire. "Tell him it was on the assassin's body."

Louis took the list. "Lord Heinze? He's a Free Merchants supporter. So's Lady Dunst, at least according to my brothers. And she was in a bad mood when I announced her. I'll tell Lord Salome right away." He bowed and took off at a trot.

Chris continued her search, patting the assassin's sides, arms, and legs for anything else concealed beneath his clothes and running her hands along the seams for secret pockets. She found a knife up one sleeve - a match for the one he'd used on Lilly - and an empty sheath in the other, but nothing else. Turning him over and repeating the process on his back was similarly fruitless.

In the background, she heard a familiar, indignant voice issuing demands - "I _asked_ for a chair! And sherry, for my _shattered nerves_! Honestly, none of you ill-bred louts seem to know how to treat a lady who's been through a _traumatic experience_. It would serve you all right if I fainted right here on the spot!"

Chris glanced up to see a perfectly steady-on-her-feet Lilly shaking a finger at one of her hapless guards. Borus intervened, looking distinctly irritated as he tried to reason with her. She smiled despite her unpleasant task - Lilly was clearly feeling better.

There was really nothing much left besides the shoes - ordinary dancing slippers, containing ordinary feet - and gloves. She peeled these off and then inspected the bared hands.

"Any runes on our assassin?" Salome asked as he approached. He came to stand by her side.

"A haziness rune and this." Chris showed him the assassin's other hand, and the blue droplet-and-ring mark on its palm. "I suppose the Silent Lake spell could've been his." She sat back on her heels and took a final look at the body before her. Between the wreck of his neck, her knife still hilt-deep, and the disarray of his clothes, it wasn't a pretty sight, and despite her care, she'd left spots of blood all along the hem and sides of his jacket. Her left glove, once relatively clean, was now almost as filthy as its mate.

Exhaling between her teeth in a sigh of distaste, she moved to stand. Salome offered her a hand up; she took it and grimaced in apology when she saw her bloody glove had dirtied his own. He gave an open-handed shrug in return, and stripped off both his gloves, tucking them in his pocket.

Her face itched. When she reached up automatically to rub it, she felt something smear unpleasantly on her skin.

"There's blood on your face. Here." Her strategist had pulled out a clean handkerchief, which he offered her.

Chris smiled crookedly and held up both filthy hands in reply. "It will have to wait, I think."

He shook his head. "Spit," he commanded, holding up the handkerchief in front of her face.

She obeyed, then closed her eyes and stood patiently as her second-in-command gently dabbed, and then more briskly scrubbed, her cheek, forehead and beside her eye. When the pressure of fabric against her face withdrew, she opened her eyes. Salome had pulled his hand back, but his eyes were still on her face, his mouth relaxed into a small, reflective frown.

"All done?" she asked him, meeting his gaze. He blinked.

"It will have to do," he told her, pocketing the dirtied square of linen. His tone was businesslike. "The carriage should be ready shortly. I presume you'll want to take Lilly home yourself?"

She nodded; even if Lilly weren't her friend, it was her duty to see to her guest's well-being personally. "I'll take Borus and his men as guards. Can you arrange for another shift for later tonight?"

"How many?"

Chris thought, considering the layout of the Lightfellow residence. It was eerily familiar, having to consider the place from a tactical perspective - where she'd need guards posted, or want eyes watching the street.. Her right hand felt cold and clammy in its filthy glove; when she glanced down, she thought she saw the faintest flicker of blue. _Ah. _It made sense: this would not be the first time a Captain Lightfellow had to watch for assassins.

"Lady Chris?"

She shook herself. "Five should do."

"Ah, yes. Of course." His expression flickered, and she wondered if he'd made the same belated connection she had. "I'll remain here to oversee the investigation, then."

"Agreed. Report to me when it's complete." She thought a moment, then added. "In the morning will be fine, unless it's urgent."

Salome inclined his head in acknowledgment.

"Lady Chris! Lady Lilly! Your chariot awaits." Louis's cheerful voice broke in as he strode up.

Chris glanced over at Lilly, who was drumming her fingers on the arm of a chair - the only one of her demands fulfilled, it seemed, since her hands were empty of sherry glasses.

"About time!" Lilly said, rising stiffly to her feet.

The mood in the carriage during the ride was subdued. Borus, officially charged with Lilly Pendragon's guard, insisted on taking a less obvious route, and Chris agreed, although it added nerve-wracking minutes to their travel. They were further slowed by the need of their escort, four knights on foot, to keep apace. Every unexpected noise over the clatter of the carriage, or change in pitch of the reverberations of wheels on cobblestones, made everyone tense or shift warily in their seats. Lilly's mouth was a thin line, and Chris felt a similarly grim expression on her own face.

Lilly sat wedged awkwardly between Chris and Louis, who had clung like a limpet to their party since he'd brought them word the carriage was ready. Chris hadn't bothered to send him away; it was good to have someone shielding Lilly from both sides during the ride. Borus sat opposite, jaw set as he leaned forward, watchful and wary.

"I don't suppose any of you could be bothered to tell me who the hell these Free Merchants are and why they'd want to kill me?" Lilly's voice broke the group's silence.

"A Zexen group agitating for free trade," Chris said, peering out the window. It was hard to see much; the streets were barely illuminated by the rows of greenish gas-lamps. "They want no tariffs and fewer restrictions on opening new businesses. Which doesn't explain why they'd choose you as their hostage, I realize."

"No, it doesn't," Lilly agreed, her voice tight.

"The assassin really seemed to hate women," Louis said slowly. "Maybe that was it?"

Borus shook his head. "The man was a hothead and a fool, not an assassin. A crowded ballroom is just asking for trouble. A real assassin would've killed his target in the cloakroom, or on the way to the ball." He seemed to realize belatedly that the assassin's target was sitting across from him in a bloodstained gown, and winced. "I"m sorry, Lady Lilly, I spoke without thinking."

"Pff, don't be, you're absolutely right," Lilly said, waving her hand and almost smacking Chris in the face in the close confines of the carriage. "I was in the war too, you know! This is hardly the first time someone's tried to kill me. Hmmph, the idea to take a hostage probably struck him after one too many glasses of wine and I was the first dainty young thing he saw."

Borus shook his head, whether dismissing Lilly's suggestion that it was an impulse decision or her description of herself as dainty. If it was the former, Chris had to agree; the mail shirt beneath his finery was proof enough of advance planning, and there were the runes and the escape scroll besides. So why _Lilly _as the hostage?

"Almost any other lady there would have been a safer choice. Safer for him, I mean," she said slowly. "But he knew you were from Tinto."

"I announced that when you came in," Louis reminded them. "And you two came in together. So he knew you'd want to protect her and would want to negotiate, Lady Chris."

Chris shook her head, then remembered that he couldn't see it. "I couldn't actually meet any of his demands, Captain of the Knights or not. Only the Council can make decisions about trade and taxes."

"But you said you had authority-" Lilly began, sounding surprised.

"I was buying time, mostly," Chris explained. "If necessary I suppose I would've taken his demands to the Council, I suppose, but mostly I was hoping for an opening for one of us to act, or for his Silent Lake spell to expire. Unless he planned to use the escape scroll and flee with you as his hostage before then..." No, that didn't seem quite right, either.

"I'm not here as an ambassador. While certainly my father would be furious if anything happened to me on Zexen soil… would your Council actually grant that good-for-nothing's requests? I can't remember what they were exactly, but they were probably pretty extreme."

"They're merchants. It depends on how much it would hurt their wallets," Borus replied tersely. "I know some have their trade routes by sea or overland elsewhere, so Tinto closing its borders to Zexen trade and caravans wouldn't hurt them personally. Might even drive prices up on the goods they sell."

"What _I_ don't understand is where you got the second knife, Lady Chris," Louis said suddenly. "Did you take it off the assassin?"

Awkward silence followed his question. Lilly covered her mouth with a hand, probably to hide a smile. Borus shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Ah, that is…"

"I had it down the front of my dress," Chris said as calmly as she could, glad the dim light hid her face. It was a wonder that her voice didn't come out strangled. "Inside my stays. I had some difficulty drawing it," she added with frustration.

"Well, that's one way to put it," Lilly muttered.

"I'm sorry," Chris told her. "If I'd been able to get it out sooner…"

Louis's face was hidden from her, but from his tone she could imagine his wide-eyed expression. "Oh." He paused, then continued in innocent tones. "Do you normally wear a knife down the front of your dress like that, Lady Chris? Or shirt?"

"_Louis!_" Borus was outraged. "You- you - how dare you ask a question like that!"

"I certainly will be next time I attend a ball," Chris told her squire dryly. "If only to have an answer to the vulgar questions of busybodies." Her stern look was rather lost in the darkness, and Louis just laughed in reply.

The carriage rolled to a bumpy, swaying halt. They'd arrived.

Getting Lilly from the carriage to the house was a painstaking process. Borus had to verify the grounds were secure, then speak with Chris's butler, then be admitted to the residence and verify _that_ was secure; then Lilly needed to have her person surrounded as closely as possible while moving as quickly as possible in case of a sniper. It was a wonder they made it inside with no one tripping in the darkness on the uneven ground.

Even with Borus's advance warning, her servants were shocked at the sight of the two women in bloody ballgowns. The normally imperturbable Andrew gasped audibly, while Molly's hands went to her mouth and she stared, wide-eyed and shaking.

"Lilly's been healed and I'm unhurt," Chris assured them both, a little taken aback by the strength of their reactions. But then again, the staff at Brass Castle were all used to seeing the knights return bloodied and worse from the battlefield; Molly and Andrew weren't. "None of the blood's mine. See to Lilly first."

"Y-you'll be wanting a bath, milady." Molly ventured, stepping forward towards Lilly. "I began drawing it up as soon as I heard the carriage arrive, although I never guessed-"

"Just lead the way," Lilly told her wearily.

They retreated upstairs swiftly. Chris stayed behind, giving Andrew instructions on how to handle deliveries - the morning milk would have to be turned away until they had more information, and any letters or parcels would need to be handled with care in case of poison - and then discussing the guards' positions and shifts with Borus. It wasn't until she'd finished both her conferences that she realized Louis was still there, standing patiently at parade rest.

"You should really go home," Chris told her squire. The alertness she'd maintained since the assassin first took Lilly hostage had vanished in the familiar surroundings of her home, leaving her tired and not inclined to mince words. "Your parents will be worried and we've got enough guards."

Louis shook his head. "My place is by your side, milady," he insisted. "And you and Lord Borus forgot a post."

She frowned at her squire.

"Er." He fidgeted under her gaze. "There's none outside Lady Lilly's door. What if an assassin makes it into the house past the other guards? There should be a last line of defense!"

Chris sighed and shook her head in weary disbelief. "If you really want to stand on guard for the next four hours, so be it."

"Thank you, Lady Chris!"

He looked entirely too happy for someone who was going to be spending half the night on his feet, Chris thought, trudging up the stairs ahead of him. She pointed out Lilly's room to him before entering her own.

It was a great relief to finally remove her gloves, which had gone cold and stiff. She was tempted to chuck them in the fireplace - really, they were ruined - but the fire was down to coals and Molly would probably scold her. She draped them over the fireplace screen instead.

The pitcher at her washstand was full of water and warm to the touch. She filled the basin and submerged her red-laced hands in the warm water, which soon swirled with diffusing, scarlet-brown threads. It reminded her of the blood slowly seeping through the assassin's shirt; swallowing thickly, she shoved away the comparison.

Her hands were much cleaner after she scrubbed them with a cloth and dried them, although her fingernails were still ringed with dark stains. By the time she'd washed her face and neck, scrubbing away blood and cosmetics with another rare sliver of rose soap, the water was pinkish and murky.

There was a knock at the door; Chris opened it to see Molly with another pitcher of water and a bucket.

Her maid was silent as she emptied the wash-basin into the bucket and placed the fresh pitcher on the stand. Then she turned to Chris, wringing her hands.

"Oh, milady." With just the four syllables somehow Molly managed to convey dismay, sympathy, and horror. "It must have been awful." Heedless of propriety and the filthy state of Chris's dress, she put her arms around her mistress.

Chris took a deep breath and wound up with a lungful of the sweet, cloying smells of lemon and laundry soap. It seemed to reach past her nostrils down to her gut.

Molly was solid against her chest, too solid. Chris remembered (or imagined) the assassin's last raspy gasp for air, the splash of hot blood against the bare skin of her face. Moments like these sometimes came to her after a battle, where her body rebelled against what her mind recalled with too-sharp clarity. They would pass, but she needed air, space, a moment to master herself. Chris tried to pull out of Molly's embrace.

Unaware of or mistaking her mistress's distress, Molly held fast. "Oh, milady, when I saw you covered in blood I feared - "

Her stomach turned. Chris shoved her maid away and made a break for her wash basin. She reached it, retched once without bringing anything up besides a burn in the back of her throat. Clamping her jaw shut, she braced herself against the wooden washstand and breathed through her teeth, slowly, until the feeling subsided.

Once she was sure the nausea was past, she rinsed her mouth, spat, and then turned around. Molly was still on the floor, staring at her.

Chris knelt down beside the woman, who flinched. "I'm sorry," she said, as gently as she could. "I forgot myself. Did I hurt you?"

Molly shook her head wordlessly and, still looking dazed, accepted Chris's hand to help her to her feet. Her legs almost immediately buckled; Chris caught her just in time.

"Milady, forgive me," Molly protested weakly.

Chris shook her head, holding the woman up for a moment as she looked around, awkwardly, for a place for her to sit. She wound up hooking a foot around the leg of a chair to drag it closer.

"Here. Catch your breath." Chris eased the older woman into the chair, then crouched down by her side. "Where does it hurt?"

Molly drew her knees aside and away. "I'm fine, milady. I stumbled. That's all. Please don't trouble yourself over me."

Chris had feigned being unhurt out of pride enough times to recognize when someone else was doing the same, and to sympathize. "Take a moment to catch your breath, then."

She removed Leo's sword and her jewelry herself, taking her time. The earrings she put away, but there were browning stains on the ribbon band of the choker. She shoved away a pang of regret; it was too late to worry whether she'd ruined it or not.

"I'll see what I can do about that, and the dress, milady." Molly had risen. "But you'll be wanting your hair down first."

"Thank you." Chris took a seat at the dressing table, facing the mirror.

Molly worked in silence as she unpinned Chris's hair. Chris winced once at almost-sore feeling along her scalp as her hair came down from the unfamiliar arrangement, and in the mirror she saw Molly's flinch; afterward that Chris kept herself as still as possible.

"Help me out of my dress, please," she said when the last pins were removed and her hair hung loose and tangled, itchy against the back of her neck and the bare parts of her shoulders. Molly complied without speaking, working her way down the row of buttons along the back of the dress. She worked swiftly, but even without seeing her Chris could feel her fumble once or twice. Unlacing her stays took so long that Chris was unsurprised at the tremor in the older woman's hands as she hung up the garment to air.

Seeing Molly's grip on the hairbrush go white-knuckled as the older woman came closer decided her. "Thank you, Molly. That will be all," she said. "I think I want to be alone now."

"Very well, milady." Molly's voice was too polite, her movements too careful as she placed the brush back on the dressing table. Without a word, she took the choker and much-worse-for-wear dress and left the room, her steps slow until the last one, just barely visible as the door closed behind her.

There was nothing she could do about Molly right now, Chris thought, and took up the hairbrush with a sigh. She felt almost too drained to bother brushing her hair out before braiding it for bed, but she'd regret it in the morning, and Molly would scold-

She tugged the brush roughly through a tangle of hair, then again, using her free hand to guide the brush. Her hair was waxy and still fragrant from the pomade, and the waft of nostalgic scent reminded of her mother. This had been her parents' room at one point, and Molly had been her mother's maid before she was Chris's, so almost certainly Anna had stood wearily here after a ball, while Molly helped take down her hair and climb out of her finery. _Although I'm sure she never had to wash blood off her afterwards,_ Chris thought as she tied off her braid. That thought didn't bother her much, but the one that followed did. _Or hurt Molly._

Really, she should not be so tired; had the ball not been interrupted she'd have been up for another few hours at least. And so many of her knights were on duty now, guarding her home or conducting the investigation, and would be awake long into the night.

After trading her shift for a nightdress, she washed her hands and face once again using the new pitch of water. It was hard not to feel guilty, taking rest when others were working on her behalf. _Exhausting yourself only to assuage your conscience is worse than pointless_, she scolded herself, _Or do you want to collapse tomorrow like you did that time on the way to see the Council? _And she'd need her mind clear and sharp in the morning to sort through what Salome, Percival, and Leo had learned, to make connections they might have overlooked in their own weariness.

Why _had_ the assassin targeted Lilly, why-

_Stop that_,she thought firmly, climbing beneath the covers. The bed groaned quietly as she settled in. _There will be time enough for that in the morning. It's time to sleep now._

Sleep did not come easily. Chris had never realized how noisy her home could be until that night. The walls creaked as the old house settled on its foundation, and shutters rattled in the occasional whistling gust of wind. The echo of footfalls in the hallway - a familiar enough sound at Brass Castle - jolted her from near-sleep more than once, until her racing mind realized it was just Borus making the rounds.

Lilly's room shared a wall with her own. At the first sounds from her friend's quarters, Chris came awake. Moments later, she was out of bed, sword in hand, and rushing out the door.

Louis, at his post outside Lilly's room, seemed surprised to see her. Chris gaped at his apparent irresponsibility, but before she said anything, her mind caught up to processing what her ears were hearing, and the young man's awkward posture.

Chris cleared her throat as they both heard another, muffled, sob.

"I'll bring her a hot drink and talk to her," she told him, and her squire's expression cleared in relief.

She returned a few minutes later, this time with a dressing gown on and without her sword, carrying a tray with two cups and a steaming pot of cocoa. Louis gave it a longing glance.

"You're relieved of this post, squire," she told him formally, suppressing an urge to smile. Louis had a sweet tooth; he also had a habit of listening at doors. She might as well use one to solve the problem of the other. "Bring hot drinks to the other sentries, and spell anyone who needs to use the privy. Knock on the door to let me know when you return."

She watched him disappear down the stairs before rapping softly on the door. "Lilly? Are you awake?"

The sobs quieted, replaced by the creak of mattress and then of floorboards. A moment later the door opened onto Lilly's face, made paler by the dim light.

"I couldn't sleep," Chris said quietly, and lifted the tray. "I thought you might be in a similar position."

"I'm not surprised. Your beds aren't very comfortable," Lilly groused with half-hearted bravado, opening the door further to admit her. "Your servants need to take more care when they turn out the beds."

Chris placed the tray on the dressing table, lit the lamp there, and proceeded to pour out cocoa for both of them. Lilly sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tight in her lap. When she lifted them to take her cup from Chris, they trembled.

Wordlessly, Chris sank into the only other seat in the room, a chair beside the dressing table, and waited.

"You probably think I'm a coward," Lilly said at last, staring down into the teacup she held in both hands. "Sobbing to myself like a...a child."

"Someone tried to kill you today," Chris told her plainly. "That's a good reason to be upset."

"Yes, but it's not like it's the first time that's happened," Lilly said glumly. "But this time I froze! I didn't even go for my knife, didn't even remember I had it!" She exhaled, then added softly, "Chris, I was just so afraid."

"Fear is a good thing. It means you're paying attention." The words came out without a thought; only a moment later did Chris realize that they sounded patronizing. "At least, that's what my knight-master always told me."

"You weren't afraid," Lilly said, challengingly. Accusingly. "You were cool as anything, When you tried to negotiate with him. When he called you... and when you stabbed him. And after, searching the body." She shuddered – a real one, not the kind she affected when she was complaining. "You know, back during the war, I always hated it when you or Hugo or Geddoe searched corpses."

Lilly wouldn't want to hear that keeping a cool head was part of a knight's training, fear held at bay by discipline and habit - she'd just see it as a reminder of what she lacked. The latter, though, Chris could address. "I'm sorry. I'd have left it to someone else if I knew it bothered you."

"I don't want to be coddled," Lilly snapped. "I already know that compared to you I'm nothing more than a little girl playing warrior with my sword."

Chris couldn't miss the echo of her own, earlier sentiment, although that afternoon's preparation for the ball seemed like it had happened months ago. She set down her cocoa and crossed to her friend's side. She took Lilly's right hand in her own and turned it palm up so the calluses were clear, or would be if the light were better. "Look at your hands. You are definitely a swordswoman."

Lilly balled her hand into a fist, pulling it away. "I got cut. You didn't take a scratch."

Chris exhaled. "I was lucky. _Very_ lucky. Taking someone to the ground in a knife fight was not the smartest thing I could've done. And the assassin had the knife on _you_. What's the first rule of combat with edged weapons?" She hoped this much was universal.

"Expect to get cut," Lilly recited automatically. "Oh." She sat up straighter.

"With his knife at your neck, I all I could do was keep him talking and hope you'd take any opening he gave you." Chris turned to look at Lilly. "Which you did."

"I guess I did. But... you're still the one who killed him. I should have-"

"Well, I was hardly going to let him go after you once you were away." Chris rolled her eyes. "Unless next time you want me to leave all the glory for you?"

"No thank you!" Lilly said hastily.

"It's fine to analyze a battle afterwards and learn from it. But it's not good to I-should-have yourself to death." Chris stared into the far corner of the room, as if studying the outlines of furniture in the lamp's small light. "And as for keeping a cool head, well, that only carries so far. I nearly threw up once we got home."

"Oh."

They sat in silence a while longer. There was a soft rap at the door. They both looked up, but neither of them flinched - progress, Chris thought, before saying aloud, "That will be Louis returning to his post. We should both try to get some sleep."

"Definitely. I'm all worn out from dancing, you know." Lilly drained her cup. "I do trust your servants know better than to wake us early the morning after a ball?" She sounded almost like her usual self.

"They do." Chris collected the cocoa things and left. Lilly extinguished the light as she left the room.


End file.
